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EVERYCHILD'S SERIES 



OLD SETTLER STORIES 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



EVERYCHILD'S SERIES 



OLD SETTLER STORIES 



BY 

MABEL ELIZABETH FLETCHER 



n 



Neto gork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1917 

jill rights reser-ved 



^ 'r-A> 



Copyright, 1977, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1917. 



m-\ 1917 



©CLA4G7223 



V, 



'Jio ! 



PHILIP, HENRY, AND JOHN 
FREDERICK, AND EUGENE 



For some of the material used in these tales 
and for the verification of doubtful points, the 
writer is greatly indebted to various histories 
of Macon and McLean counties, and to the 

Decatur Review. 



CONTENTS 



The Big Snow .... 

Matthew's First Buck . 

Jumping Jeptha 

The Pattern .... 

An Adventure on the Road . 

The Barring Out on Panther Creek . 

The Perilous Capture of Sukey Matilda 

Little Kate and Bouncing Ben 

A Village Franklin 

A Christmas of Long Ago 

The Piasa Bird 

Young John Goes to Market 

The Sudden Freeze 

Comfort's Wedding 

Lincoln in Macon County 



PAGE 
I 

31 

45 
55 
63 

72 

87 
100 

no 

129 

136 

145 

152 
167 



IS 



OLD SETTLER STORIES 



THE BIG SNOW 

It was the morning of a gray day In Novem- 
ber. From a little log cabin on the edge of 




The Big Snow. 

the timber skirting Lake Fork, the smoke 
rose slowly. It was a cabin of the roughest 
type, made of small logs notched and put 
together. The cracks were filled with "chink- 
ing" and daubed with clay. The stick-and- 
clay chimney was stained by the smoke and 

B I 



2 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

weather to a color as dark as the house Itself. 
Over the cabin towered two mighty oaks, the 
two tallest trees on the extreme edge of the 
wolf-haunted timber. 

In the one room of the house, on this par- 
ticular day, was an anxious group. Miles 
Smith stood by the rough table, pulling his 
fur cap down over his ears, and buttoning 
his fur coat closely about him. In front of 
the fireplace, gently rocking her sick baby, 
Polly, sat his wife, her eyes going sadly from 
her baby to her husband. Arden, the twelve- 
year-old son, was staring out the window at 
the lowering sky. 

*'Well, Jane," said Mr. Smith, putting his 
shotgun to his shoulder, ''I must go. Take 
good care of Polly, and I'll bring back the 
doctor for her to-morrow. And I'll tr}^ to 
get some wheat flour for you," 

The tears rained down Mrs. Smith's face 
as she answered, ^'Oh, A/[iles, if you only 
didn't have to go ! I'm so afraid for you !" 

"There is Polly," answered her husband 



THE BIG SNOW 3 

gently. ^'She needs help. We've done all 
we can. And Bronson's sick. When he 
helped me put in my crops, I promised him 
that if he ever needed help I'd come to him. 
There's no one in the family to hunt, now that 
he's broken his leg, and I must take him some 
provisions." 

"I know," said his wife bravely, as she 
wiped away her tears with her apron. ''You 
must keep your word. But, Miles, do watch 
out for the Indians." 

Her husband's face grew even graver, 
though he tried hard to smile and comfort his 
wife. He kissed them all good-by, and then 
turned sharply to the door. There he mo- 
tioned for his son to follow him. Outside 
the cabin he said with an anxious glance at 
the sky, "I'm afraid it's going to snow. 
You'd better get out to the shocks and bring 
in all the corn you can, for a big snow would 
make things hard for us." 

"Don't go. Father," begged Arden sud- 
denly. 



4 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

"It's Polly," returned Mr. Smith In a low 
voice. ^' I could wait a few days to take these 
things to Bronson, but I don't think Polly's 
going to get well without help. You mustn't 
let your mother know that, though. Take 
good care of her — and in case — in case — 
Indians come, get into the dugout." 

The dugout was a secret cave room reached 
by a narrow tunnel leading from the cabin. 
A great settle concealed the opening ; the 
sawn logs, too, were carefully fitted back 
into it, so that if the settle was completely 
removed, none but the keenest eyes could 
discover the opening. 

Arden nodded, and his father took up the 
rawhide rope by which he was to draw the 
rough sled on which lay two wild hogs, com- 
pletely dressed. He reached out and laid 
his hand a moment on his son's shoulder, 
then strode off with his load into the timber. 

Arden looked again at the sky. It was even 
grayer and snowier-looking. The ground was 
already covered with white, thus enabling his 



THE BIG SNOW 



father to draw the sled easily to where the 
Bronsons lived, fifteen miles away. 

The settlement was five miles beyond 
Bronsons' ; when he reached there, Mr. 
Smith would remain all night, but the doctor 
would probably come 
at once on horseback 
to the sick child. 

Mindful of his fa- 
ther's words, Arden at 
once began carrying 
corn from the shocks 
to the rough stable, and 
even into the house 
It began to snow, and 
he worked all the 
faster. Although there 
was quite a pile of 
wood already cut, he took the ax and 
chopped up several young trees which he 
and his father had earlier cut down and 
dragged to the cabin. Alarmed by the dark 
sky and the swift falling of the snow, his 




Arden at Once Began Car- 
rying Corn from the Shocks. 



6 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

mother, who had put the baby to sleep, 
came out and helped him carry In the sticks 
for the fireplace. They filled one corner of 
the cabin, heedless of the dust and chips that 
fell, laying in enough to last a week, in case 
the snow should become very deep. By 
nightfall the flakes had ceased to whirl, but 
they lay fully a foot deep everywhere, and 
they were two feet deep in places where the 
wind had made drifts. 

The next day the snow melted a little. 
Then the weather suddenly grew colder, and 
a skim of ice covered the soft blanket. This 
ice came just to Arden's knees, as he waded 
about, feeding the horse and cow, the heavy 
oxen, and the few chickens pent in one corner 
of the log barn. It was continually break- 
ing through with him unexpectedly, and 
making him spill the milk or chicken-feed 
which he carried. The boy was extremely 
troubled. Little Polly seemed worse, and 
his mother was about distracted. With 
the child on her lap, she sat looking out 



THE BIG SNOW 7 

the window in the direction her husband had 
disappeared. 

**The doctor will be here pretty soon," she 
kept saying. 

Then the snow began again. After that 
Arden remembered very little of the passage 
of time. He seemed to work for days shov- 
eling paths to the barn, and to the smoke- 
house and the woodpile. He feverishly gath- 
ered more corn from the shocks and stored it 
in the barn. He had to cook all the meals 
and wash the few dishes, for after the second 
day his mother sank into a sort of stupor, 
her mind intent only on the sick child. 

Why did not his father come ^ Or the 
doctor ^ On the snow there was now a 
stronger skim of ice, about waist-deep ; a 
horse could not travel on it, but a man could. 
Twenty miles was not thought a long dis- 
tance for a doctor to come in those days. 
This same physician had gone thirty or forty. 

By the fifth day, the snow was almost up 
to the boy's shoulders. It melted a little, 



8 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

and the usual ice skim formed again. Then 
it snowed no more. 

The cold bright sun came out and trans- 
figured the whole landscape, but to Arden 
and his mother it brought little comfort. 
The boy realized dimly that little Polly was 
going to die. His mother seemed to have 
forgotten the child, to a certain extent. 
When she gave her a drink, or rocked her, 
it was in a certain wooden fashion that made 
her son afraid, though he did not know why. 
All the rest of the time Mrs. Smith watched 
for her husband. Arden knew that she 
feared that his father had been captured by 
the Indians. Keokuk, the old chief, had just 
ceded to the United States all lands held by 
his tribes east of the Mississippi River — and 
this without the knowledge of his rival chief. 
The treat}^ provided that Black Hawk and 
his followers were to give up their village 
and hunting grounds the next year. The 
angry old chief had declared the treaty a 
fraud, and was said to be trying to unite all 



THE BIG SNOW 9 

the Indians against the whites. No war had 
been declared, but there wxre rumors of ugly 
happenings, and pioneers were banding to- 
gether wherever they could, prepared to de- 
fend the women and children. 

On the tenth day after his father had left, 
Arden went to the barn through the tunnel 
he had shoveled. There he hunted until he 
found a short log which had been sawed in 
two, lengthwise. With his lips set, he began 
to hollow out the halves, using his father's 
adze. Bab}' Polly w^as going to die, and she 
must have a cofhn. Under the circum- 
stances, they could not dig her a little grave^ 
but, he figured out, they could put her away 
in the deep snow near the house, and when 
the snow melted and help came, the}^ could 
bury her properly. Her tiny, prett}^ body 
would lie in the slowly growing hollow of one 
log, and he would place the other over it, 
binding the two together with hickory bark. 

He was so shaken by the time that he had 
finished hollowing out one piece that he 



lo OLD SETTLER STORIES 

thrust his hands into his pockets, and went 
out into the deep tunnel that led to the house. 
As he stood on tiptoe and glanced over the 
wide frozen prairie to the east, he suddenly 
froze to attention. Outlined on a knoll far 
away to his left, he saw plainly the form of 
an Indian warrior. No other was as yet in 
sight. 

Panic-stricken, the boy ducked and dashed 
madly into the barn, where he snatched up 
the rude coffin and a few ears of corn. Then 
he fled into the house. Polly slept peacefully 
on the shuck bed at one end of the room, and 
the fire w^as low on the hearth. His mother 
had been frying doughnuts, and at the sight 
of them, his eyes filled with tears, and he 
winked hard to keep them back. It was his 
mother's first real thought for him in all the 
sad days which had passed since his father 
left. Mrs. Smith read the evil news in his 
face, and dropped the noggin of small fried 
cakes. 

"Indians.?" 



THE BIG SNOW ii 

He nodded, speechless. 

Then he found his voice. "We must get 
into the cave," he cried, swiftly dropping to 
his knees and pulling out the logs which 
filled the entrance. "You make Polly a bed 
in there, Mother, and I'll get some food and 
water. Hurry ! There was only one Indian, 
and he was about two miles away, I think — " 

A/[rs. Smith, after she had rapidly made a 
bed for little Polly and placed her on it in the 
cave, gave a glance at the fire. It was very 
low. She hastily poured cold ashes over it, 
making it look blank and dead. Next, with 
Arden's help, she wildly but silently put the 
room in disorder, as if it had been the scene 
of a violent struggle. She was not able, after 
her long w^orry over her husband's delay, to 
think clearly. But she figured out that, if 
the Indians came, they w^ould find the place 
so torn up that they w^ould think the owners 
had been carried off by some enemy. 

In a very short time the mother and child 
were settled in the warm passage. Arden, 



12 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

after securing a flint and some dry tow chips, 
crept in after them. Kneeling in the small 
opening, he with difliculty pulled the settle 
back in place. Then he arranged some sticks 
of firewood under it, so that it might look to 
one outside as if they had been carefully piled 
there for future use. Next, building from 
behind, he put in place the logs which con- 
cealed the opening. This was the hardest 
of all. 

Thev w^aited in breathless terror. It was 
not long before some one smote upon the door. 
Then he felt, rather than heard, the room fill 
with savages. At first the visitors seemed to 
explore every corner of the cabin. The terri- 
fied settlers could hear their guttural grunts, 
and occasionally a few words in the native 
tongue. There was next the sound of falling 
pewter dishes, and then the savages seemed 
to go outside. Arden fancied that they were 
busy searching in the smoke-house and stable. 

Little Polly gave a moan, and her mother 
rocked her frantically in her arms. Suddenly 



THE BIG SNOW 13 

Arden's heart gave a sickening leap, for he 
heard some one taking away the wood in front 
of the settle. 

*^It has come," he thought. 

He gripped tightly the sharp butcher knife 
in his hand. The first Indian who peered in 
under that settle would never speak again. 
Of that he was sure. Should he, Arden, kill 
his own mother, rather than let her be taken, 
if capture was certain ? Men had been 
known to kill their wives rather than to let 
them become prisoners to be tortured. No, 
he decided. There was a chance that they 
would not be treated very harshly, and the 
settlement (if all the men were not already 
killed) might band together and rescue them. 
It was a big decision for a boy to come to, 
with a savage steadily working his way to 
them. 

Suddenly the sound of the removing of the 
sticks ceased. After a short time there was 
not a single sound in the cabin. Could the 
Indians actually have gone awa}', questioned 



14 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

the boy, his heart thumping loudly. His 
grasp on the butcher knife loosened a little. 
Yes, they had. 

At once he was possessed with a desire to 
leave their hiding place. In spite of his 
mother's alarm, he noiselessly pushed out 
somewhat one of the logs in the opening. 
He looked out. There was not a person in 
the room, which was now in wilder disorder 
than before. Then, through the outside door, 
which had been left open, he saw a strange 
sight. Going away from the cabin, on top of 
the hard crust of the snow^, were the Indians. 
Several of them — there were about ten in all 
— were loaded down with the wild hogs 
which Mr. Smith had stored in the smoke- 
house for winter use. The other savages each 
had food of some sort or other. The thing 
which made Arden's eyes open wide was this : 
every Indian, except those carrying the frozen 
hogs, bore on his arrow some of the dough- 
nuts which had been overturned before the 
family w^ent into hiding ! One great fellow 



THE BIG SNOW 15 

had a necklace of them around his neck. 
And the last one in the little band, a slender 
bov, carried off with him little Polly's coffin, 
filled with the brown rings ! 

"Mother! Mother! " 

"What?" whispered Mrs. Smith. 

"Come here quick and see something 
funny ! They're going away. They were 
just hungry, and we needn't have hidden. 
Look there!" 

When A/[rs. Smith saw her doughnuts 
waved around on the points of the arrows 
as the happy Indians went off to the east, in 
spite of all her fright and trouble, she laughed. 

After that day they saw no more redskins, 
but a new anxiety arose. The visitors had 
taken almost all of their provisions. The most 
serious loss was the loss of the wild hogs, which 
were to have lasted all winter. Luckily one 
whole hog had been put down in salt, and 
this the Indians had somehow missed. Arden 
pounded corn in a mortar to make corn meal 
and hominy. It grew harder and harder to 



i6 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

get the corn out of the shocks and into the 
house. Twice Arden shot a deer, for the 
starved creatures came without fear up to 
the very door. They were so poor, however, 
that they were worthless. 

The only bright spot in their trouble lay in 
the fact that little Polly was getting better. 
The fever had almost left her, and although 
she was still very weak, both the mother and 
Arden felt that she would live. Mrs. Smith 
had ceased to watch for her husband's return. 
From her strained face and from the way 
she spoke about the spring planting, the boy 
knew that she hardly expected to see her hus- 
band again. He had surely been captured by 
Black Hawk and his tribe as they went west 
on their annual hunting trip. 

One morning, four months after Mr. Smith 
had left, the two were sitting by the fire, 
watching Polly patty-cake in her old happy 
way. Suddenly they heard the loud barking 
of a dog outside. It was a strange sound, 
after so man}' weeks of blank, white silence, 



THE BIG SNOW 17 

and It startled them so that they both 
screamed. Little Polly began to cry. Then 
the door opened and In walked Mr. Benson, 
his face red with cold. 

*'0h, did he get to you ? Have you seen 
hlm.^" gasped Mrs. Smith. 

"Indeed he did," answered Mr. Benson 
heartily, "and just about saved our lives with 
those hogs. I couldn't move, because of my 
broken leg, and the children were too little 
to hunt. But you'll be wanting to see him t 
I'll bring him right In. You see, he had a 
fight with wolves, and he was pretty well 
chewed up when he fell against my door, 
and—" 

Mrs. Smith waited to hear no more, but 
tossed her baby on to the bed. She rushed to 
the door, and out Into the tunnel. There 
she saw, on top of the snow, the old sled, and 
on It lay her husband, pale, thin, and terribly 
scarred. He was carefullv cushioned on bear 
skins. But he was alive, and he was smiling ! 

Arden and Mr. Benson carried him In and 



1 8 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

put him to bed, while little Polly crowed and 
laughed at their joy. She was not afraid of 
this new father with the red stripes on his 
cheeks and hands. Too weak to stand, Mrs. 
Smith knelt by the bed, her hand clasping 
her husband's, while Mr. Benson told all of 
the story he would ever tell. 

Within a mile of the Benson home, Mr. 
Smith had been attacked by a small pack of 
wolves. He did not realize how serious was 
his situation at first, for wolves were often 
cowardly and easily killed. These were fierce 
and very large, however, and he had a long 
and hard fight. At last he killed every one, 
losing only one hog in the fray. He himself 
was badly wounded and suffered terribly 
during the fight. He was delirious for two 
wxeks, and too ill to travel until now. Mrs. 
Benson could not leave the two sick men and 
her three babies to send Mrs. Smith news of 
her husband's safety, and thus the weeks 
dragged on. Another neighbor brought pro- 
visions to Mr. Benson just before the last of 



THE BIG SNOW 19 

the wild hog meat was eaten, and he prom- 
ised to carry the news to Mrs. Smith, and get 
the doctor for the sick child, if the child still 
lived. He had set off into the forest, and they 
supposed he had arrived. They had no way 
of knowing, for he was to return by a differ- 
ent route. As soon as he was able to limp 
along, Mr. Benson dragged his friend home. 

The kindly neighbor was never heard of 
again, and the people of the country searched 
a long time for his body, after the great snow 
finally melted. They never found it, and no 
one ever knew what became of him. 

Little Polly lived to be a rosy-cheeked, 
blue-eved voung lady. She was known as 
the belle of Lake Fork, the town which years 
later sprang up at the edge of the timber. 
At the country parties, when the young 
people flocked about her, she used to tell, as 
she folded her hands demurely over her ^'bit 
calico" dress, how once upon a time the 
Indians carried off her coffin full of dough- 
nuts. 



MATTHEW'S FIRST BUCK 

Matthew Coverdale was the youngest of 
seven husky brothers who lived in the wooded 
bend of Crow Creek. In those days a boy 
who had not killed, or at least helped to kill, 
a wolf or a bear, w^as unusual. And a boy 
who had never killed a deer w^as practically 
unknown. 

Yet Matthew, who was fifteen, had never 
dragged home his buck. The reason was 
this : every time he started one and trium- 
phantly chased him down, just as he raised 
his gun to fire, he was overcome by the ''buck 
ague." When the animal came bounding 
rapidly toward him, his knees suddenly be- 
came weak, his teeth chattered, and he shook 
so that his shot always went wild. Even 
older hunters occasionally were afflicted w^ith 
this buck fever, but this did not console 

20 



MATTHEW'S FIRST BUCK 21 

Matthew. His family must have meat, and 
have it often. It was necessary that he do 
his part of the killing, and since venison was 
plentiful, he suffered under his affliction more 
and more. 

One night just at supper time, his oldest 
brother, Aaron, came home with a big buck 
tied to his horse's tail. Old Dobbin had 
dragged the carcass all the way, for it was too 
heavy for one man to budge. Matthew left 
his supply of mush and milk and went out 
to see the animal. It was an immense 
creature with wide-spreading horns. 

"It's a ten point buck," cried Aaron 
proudly, showing where his bullet had gone 
through its heart. 

As he stood there looking at the prize, 
Matthew's heart suddenly flamed with am- 
bition. He went back into the cabin, where 
he ate his mush slowly. Then he pushed 
back his stool. 

"I'm going out to shoot a buck," he said, 
"and I'm not coming back until I get one." 



22 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

With that he took down his gun from over 
the door, and fastened in his belt a butcher 
knife. Had his mother been alive, he prob- 
ably would not have been allowed to start 
off into the forest, at night, alone. His 
father and brothers, however, thought him 
well able to take care of himself. So, in the 
moonlight, he started off in the direction of 
Old Town Timber, which lay some miles 
from Crow Creek. 

He was unable to find anything, though 
every now and then he heard cracklings in the 
bushes, and the soft scamper of some wild- 
wood thing. The hoot owls called down by 
the river, and the screech owls near him 
made him long, now and then, for his rude 
bed at home. A screech owl in the thick 
timber at night is not a pleasant companion. 

Finally the boy crept into a hollow log and 
slept the rest of the night. 

In the morning, as he was rounding a thick 
clump of timber, he came unawares upon a 
Kickapoo great . dance. The Kickapoos at 



MATTHEW'S FIRST BUCK 



23 



that time were supposed to be friendly to the 
whites, but Matthew felt nothing but terror 
at finding himself in their midst. 

"I won't dare slip off right away," he 
thought as he stood on the edge of the crowd, 
watching the dancers. 




Indians in Groups of Two Were Dancing. 

It was a strange sight. On the grassy 
sward eight Indians, in groups of two, were 
dancing around flat-footed, with tinkling 
bells on their ankles. The chief, Old Ma- 
china, to keep time to the dancers, was shak- 



24 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

ing gourds with little pebbles in them. There 
was one other musical instrument. This was 
a ten-gallon keg, with a deerskin drawn 
tightly over one end. It was carried on the 
back of a half-grown papoose and a painted 
brave beat upon it with a stick. 

Matthew continued to lurk in the circle of 
admiring squaws gathered about the dancers, 
and though he still thirsted to kill his buck, 
he could not help being interested in the 
queer proceedings. 

The dancers' bodies were all painted black, 
but over their breasts, in w^hite paint, a pair 
of hands and arms crossed. Outside the im- 
mediate circle of dancers stood a lithe young 
Indian who held up a stick in the shape of a 
gun. This, the boy afterward learned, was 
supposed to be the symbol of peace. An- 
other Indian, even taller and more lithe, held 
up a tomahawk, his hand close to the blade. 
No one was able to explain that to Matthew 
afterward; in fact, they said he must have 
imagined it. 



AlATTHEW'S FIRST BUCK 25 

When the lad saw Old Machina drop the 
head of a slaughtered deer into a pot, he 
became a hunter again, and, choosing a mo- 
ment when the Kickapoos were not looking, 
he ran fleetly awav into the forest, and in the 
direction of home. 

There was not the trace of a deer. Try 
as he would, he could discover no game 
larger than a rabbit. Must he, with shamed 
face, go home without any meat 1 

Later in the afternoon, however, he started 
a splendid buck. He was following the river, 
and came upon the animal in a windy covert. 
Now was his chance ! Could he, oh, could 
he, master those trembling fingers 1 

Gritting his teeth, he managed to ward off 
the troublesome "buck ague" and shoot — 
but he shot a little too far back to kill the 
animal. He followed it down Crow Creek 
and across the little hills. Just as the buck 
rounded the last one, he saw it toss its head 
up and down as if in dire pain and distress. 
Taking heart by this, he crept closer, and 



26 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

finally, by slipping around so that the animal 
stood sidewise to him, he shot it in the head. 
Down it came, and the boy bounded up to it. 

The big creature was not dead, how^ever, 
and Matthew had a long, hard struggle with 
it before it finally expired at his feet. 

Then he could scarcely believe his eyes. 
He had done his part ! He ^had killed his 
buck ! And what a big one it w^as, with its 
great, spreading horns ! Why, it must weigh 
a ton ! 

"But how'll I get it home .^" said Matthew 
to a chattering fox squirrel who w^as scolding 
him vigorously from a burr-oak. 

The longer he thought, the more impos- 
sible seemed this feat. He could not lift the 
animal, even if he used all his strength. He 
had no Old Dobbin to help him drag the 
prize home. If he left it, the wild animals 
would probably devour it, especially as it 
was so near night. Although he had not 
glimpsed anything savage, there were a few 
wild bears in the timber, and numerous tim- 



MATTHEW'S FIRST BUCK 27 

ber wolves. Possibly the KIckapoos would 
come upon the creature, and Old Alachina 
would make soup of its head ! llie thought 
was too much for the boy, and again he tried 
to lift his prize. It was of no use. 

Now^ it began to grow dark. If Matthew 
ever wished to cry, it was at that moment. 
He longed to drag his buck up to the very 
door of the cabin. Then he would walk into 
the house where his father and brothers were 
at supper. 

"I've got a little something out here," he 
would say. How they would pour out the 
cabin door, and how they would exclaim at 
the size of the creature ! 

"It's the biggest one any of us has killed," 
said poor Matthew, "and I can't tote it 
home." 

He gulped a little. 

At this point a slight sound startled him. 
Looking up, he saw an Indian. For a mo- 
ment his heart quailed. Then he recognized 
"Turkey," a Kickapoo so named by the 



28 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

settlers because of his habit of painting his face 
a bright red. Turkey had often stopped at 
the Coverdale house for food, when hunting 
was poor. The Coverdales had always fed him. 

"Ugh!" said Turkey, looking down at the 
buck. 

Perhaps the Indian would help him. 

"Me kill buck. Can't tote him," cried 
A/[atthew eagerly. He pointed to the buck, 
then toward home ; next he looked eagerly 
at the Indian. 

"Ugh !" said Turkey impassively. 

The boy tugged at the animal again, while 
Turkey watched him without a flicker of 
expression on his dark features. 

Suddenly the Indian gave a queer call. 
Was he summoning help to steal the prize ? 
Matthew felt for his knife. 

In answer to the cry, there rode out of the 
woods an Indian on a stout pony. 

"Ugh!" said Turkey. 

"Ugh! Ugh!" said the second Kickapoo, 
eyeing the buck. 



MATTHEW'S FIRST BUCK 



29 




There Rode out of the Woods an Indian on a Stout Pony. 



30 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

Then the two talked rapidly in the Indian 
tongue. At last the newcomer began to 
fasten the buck to the pony's tail. Turkey 
motioned for the boy to follow him, and he 
started off in the direction of the Coverdale 
cabin. 

And when the moon came up a little later, 
it saw two stolid Indians and a pony, dragging 
a buck, while beside them the happiest boy 
in the world was turning handsprings all the 
wav home. 



JUMPING JEPTHA 

Long ago there lived in a patch in the 
timber a family named Humphrey. They 
had come from Virginia in the early 40's in a 
"Virginia wagon," and were doing their 
best to level the timber and cultivate the 
ground. The wolves had gone from that 
part of the country at the time this story 
opens except for an occasional prowler in the 
deepest river timber, and the only large wild 
animals thereabouts were the beautiful big- 
eyed deer and the sly red foxes. There were 
four of the Humphreys : the father and 
mother, James, aged fourteen, and Abigail 
Rose, aged ten. All of them were used to 
seeing a deer lift startled head and crash 
away through the timber at their approach, 
or a red flash in the woods denote a fleeing 



31 



32 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

Reynard. It was not these animals that 
troubled the Humphreys ; it was the rac- 
coons. 

There was one 'coon in particular who de- 
fied James's stoutest efforts to capture him. 
He was as large as a small fox, with five very 
small black rings on his tail. He climbed 
with swiftness, and he wore a face w^ser than 
any owl or judge. It was for this last reason, 
added to the fact that he could jump as wxU 
as he could climb, that led Mr. Humphrey to 
name the thief Jumping Jeptha. 

Jeptha's chief passion was chicken. He 
stole chickens daily, almost hourly, it seemed 
to the good housewife. He carried off eggs 
as fast as the indignant hens could lay them. 
In the spring the corn was never safe. 

Traps were set for the animal, but he 
either passed them by or cleverly extracted 
their bait. James had shot at him, only to 
miss him time after time, as Jeptha jumped. 
'Coon hunts had been organized, and other 
'coons were slain, but Jeptha had been treed 



Jumping jeptha 33 

but once — and the neighbors' dogs scarcely 
lived to tell the tale. 

In the fall of '45, Abby announced one 
morning at breakfast her intention of killing 
Jumping Jeptha. She looked up at the ceil- 
ing of the cabin as she spoke. This ceiling 
was lined thickly with the skins of raccoons 
for warmth. 

At the little girl's words her brother hooted 
and her father smiled. 

"Never mind," said Abby Rose valiantly. 
" I am going to get him — you just see. He's 
caught twenty-two of my chickens. I s'pect 
he's got lots of my eggs, too, only I can't 
prove that. Now I'm going to catch him, 
and before I'm 'leven years old, too." 

"I'll get you a pink dress from the store If 
you do," said her mother. "I'll use the next 
butter monev for a start." 

"And I'll have a real pair of shoes made for 
you," smiled her father. 

"And I'll get you some candy," teased 
James. 



34 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

You cannot Imagine how wonderful these 
promises were to Abb}', for in those days lux- 
uries practically did not exist, and many a 
child never tasted candy until he was grown. 

The family had planned to do all this for 
Abigail already, for a dearer, sweeter little 
frontier maid never existed, but the child 
did not know this. Her dearest wish was 
to own a pink calico dress sprigged w^ith black, 
and to have a pair of copper-toed shoes like 
her brother's. At that time children wxnt 
barefoot into the frosty fall. Abby, in her 
few short w^inters, had had but one pair of 
shoes ; the rest of the time she wore heavy 
home-made moccasins. Butter was the prin- 
cipal thing the Humphreys sold at the store 
in the far-off town, and it brought only 
eight cents a pound in trade. Hence ''store 
clothes" for the family were few. 

The little girl's blue eyes widened now, 
and a bright light shone in them. She 
tossed her square little chin, and strode with 
long steps to the door. 



JUMPING JEPTHA 35 

''I'm not going to catch him in any old 
way," she explained as she turned conde- 
scendindv, " 'cause you've all tried that and 
failed. I'm going to find a new way." 

Then she disappeared, while her father 
laughed again. 

Abby's birthday, the tenth of September, 
drew nearer and nearer, but she had made 
no move, seemingly, to capture her enemy. 
In the meantime he had carried off two more 
chickens, Draggle-tail and Buff. She lis- 
tened thoughtfully to all the accounts of coon- 
hunting told by her father and brother and 
their few .neighbors, and she paid particular 
attention to Jeptha's peculiarities. He had 
a notch out of one ear, where a rash dog had 
tackled him. The rings on his tail were 
blacker than jet, and unusually broad. Un- 
like most raccoons, he occasionally came out 
of his hollow tree in the davtime, and went 
on a foray. James had seen him once, at 
ten o'clock in the morning, at the base of the 
old bee-tree in the hollow on Sugar Creek. 



36 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

He had some food grasped In both his fore 
paws, and was shaking it violently back and 
forth in the water. When he saw James, 
he immediately shot up into the bee-tree, 
where he leered in triumph. More than 
once, when hunted, had he sought a tree too 
big to be cut, and particularly this bee-tree. 
Because there was so much wild honey in 
the neighborhood, no one had taken the 
trouble to cut down this immense oak and 
Jeptha gloriously came and went. 

The familv now often found Abby seated 
in deep thought on the settle, or wandering 
absently in the woods. To all their good- 
natured jeers she returned a quiet smile and 
answered, 'Tm thinking out a new way." 

In the meantime she had discovered the 
den of her enemy — something the others 
had failed to do. When she reported this 
fact, it was the day before her birthday. Mr. 
Humphrey, thinking she had given up her 
notion of capture, himself decided to catch 
the wily Jeptha. 



JUMPING JEPTHA 37 

Immediately Abby spoke up. 

*' He'll go to his den," she said. 

^'Pll head him off." 

^' He'll go up a big tree." 

^'I'll wait till he comes down." 

'Tm going with you," said the little girl 
calmly, '^and I'll catch him after you're 
through, with Carlo." 

Carlo was a lean, mournful-looking hound 
whom a neighbor had recently given the 
child. She had trained the dog to perfect 
obedience. 

Mr. Humphrey laughed, and Mrs. Hum- 
phrey protested, but finally Abby had her 
w^ay. When it grew^ dark her father lighted 
a great, rude torch, and called his dogs, three 
in number. James went along to scoff, and 
even her mother threw a shawl around her 
shoulders and followed her little family into 
the night. 

''Father," said Abby, before they came to 
the bee-tree, "I want to whisper something 
to you." 



38 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

Mr. Humphrey stooped, and Abby cupped 
her two small red hands and whispered in his 
ear. All the while James jeered softly at her. 
When the little girl skipped away and danced 
a few steps in the moonlight, her father 
looked at her admiringly. 

"See here, son," he said, "right now I link 
my fortune with.Abby's. I've hunted Jeptha 
with you for two years, and we've neither 
been able to catch him. Now Fm ready to 
change partners." 

"All right," grinned James, "only, if you 
say that, Fm bound to get him now. I 
hadn't meant to to-night, but now you watch 
me get him all by myself. Then, Miss Abby, 
you just watch me wearing that new calico 
dress of yours !" 

"How are you going to get Jeptha?" 
asked the child, without a smile. 

"Well, I'm not going to let him get up a 
big tree this time, and when I chop a little 
one down, the dogs will make short work of 
Mr. 'Coon." 



JUMPING JEPTHA 39 

They walked on through the dark, fra- 
grant forest, their ears alert for every sound. 
Suddenly, while the four dogs were scouring 
eagerly through the woods, Abby, who was 
a little in advance of the others, gave an ex- 
clamation. In an open space along the 
creek, she had seen, in the moonlight, Jeptha 
washing his food in the water. She saw 
plainly his wise old face with its notched ear. 
Instantly he made a dash and went up the 
bee-tree which rose, mysterious and black, a 
short distance away. At the same moment 
the hounds began baying, for they had come 
upon his scent in the timber. Soon they 
were at the foot of the bee-tree, leaping and 
barking madl}-^. 

James lifted high the rough torch, and the 
little group could easily see Jeptha sitting on 
a large limb, and looking at them warily. 

''It's no use waiting here," said James 
gloomily, after he had calmed the dogs some- 
what. "He'll stay up there all night. And 
it would take a giant to cut this tree down." 



40 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

n 




Jeptha Sitting on a Large Limb, and Looking at Them ' 

Warily. 



JUMPING JEPTHA 41 

"I can get him," said Abby, shaking with 
excitement. 

''You!" scoffed James. ''What will you 
do ? Climb up and push him off .f^" 

"No," cried Abby, dancing about. "You 
tell him, Father, what I want him to do." 

"Abby says," explained Mr. Humphrey, 
"that Jeptha would stay there two weeks if 
we would stay here as long as that, and that 
waiting will do no good, as you say. She 
also says that she's noticed that when hunters 
leave Jeptha (and how she discovered it, 
don't ask me) he comes down at once, and 
goes in the opposite direction from that they 
have taken. Now she Vv^ill take Carlo and 
make a detour, coming up behind that 
bowlder over there. We'll wait here till 
we're sure she's hidden, then we'll make a 
a lot of noise and with the other dogs pass 
the bee-tree on a direct line awav from here, 
and go out of sight and hearing. Abby 
promises to get Jeptha then, by a trick." 

Still scoffing, after he had waited five or 



42 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

ten minutes more for Jeptha to show signs of 
coming down from the tree, James consented 
to go with his father. Mrs. Humphrey gave 
one anxious glance at the big bowlder, and 
then they all went away. 

Abby crouched behind this big bowlder, 
her hand on Carlo's head, to keep him quiet. 
She was shaking a little with the terror of 
being alone in the forest at night. She was 
sure that every rustle was a poisonous snake, 
and the bushes took on the outlines of bears, 
although she knew that there were no bears 
in that part of the country. Once she 
almost ran frantically after her family — ■ 
then she remembered the pink calico dress, 
and crouched low again. 

It seemed to the small girl like an hour, 
but it was only about fifteen minutes after 
the others were out of hearing, before she 
heard Jeptha sliding down the tree. From 
the shadows of her position she peered cau- 
tiously over the edge of the bowlder. Yes, 
there he was, the sinner, looking craftily 



JUMPING JEPTHA 43 

around to see if his enemies were really gone. 
Carlo moved Impatiently, and Abby quieted 
him. A false move now would spoil the 
game. 

Old Jeptha continued slipping and watch- 
ing until he dropped to the ground. Then, 
glancing slyly in the direction that his hunters 
had gone, he scurried straight toward Abby 
and her dog. In a second he was at their 
side. Carlo leaped. 

Abby never forgot that struggle In the for- 
est. Although Jeptha had been taken at a 
disadvantage as he scurried along, chuckling 
to himself, he fought valiantly. It was all 
Carlo could do to hold his own, but after a 
long struggle, he got the animal by the back 
of the neck and shook him until he shook him 
to death. It was at this moment that Abby's 
father came running up. His shout brought 
the others. There, dead at last, never to 
rob again, lay Jumping Jeptha ! 

Abby was at once given her pink dress and 
the wonderful copper-toed shoes, and her 



44 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

mother took two eggs and much butter to 
bake her a birthday cake, just like those of 
the little girls in old England. Added to that, 
the story of Abby's capture of Jeptha spread 
over the countryside, and after that many 
were the hunters who captured wily 'coons 
by her Ingenious little plan. 



THE PATTERN 

It was the middle of the afternoon, and 
the May sun shone brightly down on the 
Wiggin farm. It w^as a very small farm, for 
as yet Mr. Wiggin and his tall son Jim had 
been able to clear only seven acres. These 
acres lay in the very heart of the timber, but 
somehow their owner seemed to prosper more 
than the average pioneer of his time. The 
Indians no longer crept with painted bodies 
through the long, dark forest stretches, and 
the wolves and bears were seen less and less. 
The 'coons, the weasels, the snakes, and the 
crows (who were continually carrying off 
young chickens) were practically the only 
wild things to be caught or put to death. 

On this warm day, the two doors of the 
big log cabin wxre flung open. Little Martha, 
the red-headed baby, played in the east door- 

45 



46 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

way. She was talking happily to the white 
chickens who kept craning their long, half- 
feathered necks to peer in at her. Bending 
over the table in the middle of the cabin was 
Bessie, the oldest daughter of the house. 
She was laying several yards of bright green 
calico in pleats, then standing off to admire 
the effect. This calico, which had a tiny 
black polka dot figure, had been bought with 
the butter money, plus twenty-five cents 
which Bessie had received for a dozen quails. 
Butter brought five cents a pound. Bessie 
had proudly ridden to town with the butter 
and the quails, and the storekeeper in the 
rough log store had cut oif for her with his 
shining scissors seven yards of the precious 
calico. The girl's butter alone could not 
have bought the gown, but her brother had 
generously donated the quails, and her father 
had added a cord of wood. When he hauled 
this to tow^n with the oxen, the storekeeper 
had given him a dollar for it. Bessie and 
her father saw no money as they sold their 



THE PATTERN 47 

wares, for there was hardly any In the timber 
country. All bargains were made by trading. 

^'Mother," she said suddenly, 'Tm not 
going to cut out this dress without a pattern. 
I'm going over to Nettie Ray's and get that 
one she got from her cousin Ruth, down on 
Big Muddy River." 

At that time a pattern for making a dress 
was as precious as a handful of dollars. One 
rude paper draught for a dress was passed 
around among twenty or thirty or even fifty 
families over the countryside. If the pat- 
tern was made in the beginning for a very 
round and large w^oman, slender little maids 
of sixteen had some difficulty in fitting the 
gowns cut from it. They always managed 
it, however, and no one cared because prac- 
tically every w^oman for miles and miles had 
a frock like hers. 

*'I don't care what you do," groaned a 
voice from the bed. Bessie's mother lay 
there; she was having her attack of "Illinois 
Shakes." On a second bed lay the girl's 



48 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

grandmother. She, also, was 111. The two 
women were pale and yellow, as if frost- 
bitten, and now and then they groaned In 
their misery. Near the west door sat Bessie's 
grandfather, w^ho had just recovered from the 
burning fever which followed the chills of 
this disease to which all pioneers in Illinois 
fell victim. Grandfather was w^eak and pale. 
He turned slow eyes on his pretty grand- 
daughter. 

*^ Isn't this your day for the shakes.^" he 
asked feeblv. 

*^Yes, but they don't come on till four 
o'clock. I can easily get back by that time," 
returned Bessie cheerfully. 

'^ Bessie, you bring me the boneset tea," 
said her mother weaklv. 

'^And bring me Brady' s Bitters^^^ quavered 
her grandmother. 

The girl obeyed, and the two sick w^omen 
drank deep of the medicine. In the fall 
every one on the swampy prairie took the 
chills and fever, more commonly known as 



THE PATTERN 49 

the Illinois shakes. This disease was not 
contagious, but it sometimes affected a whole 
family at once, and even a whole neighbor- 
hood. The chills came on at the same hour 
every day, or every alternate day, with deadly 
regularity. They wxre followed by a burning 
fever which left the patient so weak that he 
could not work at all. Bessie's family had 
been having the shakes for about a year now. 

^'If I wasn't just gettin' over my shakes, 
I'd go for you," quavered Grandfather. 

^^It's a passel o' nonsense, anyway," said 
Grandmother, sitting up in bed and trying 
to control her shaking. ^'All a passel o' non- 
sense ! Why can't you cut out that dress 
just like your last 1 Joe'U like you just as 
well. Anyway, Ruth is as big as a moose- 
cow, and you'll have to whittle that pattern 
down turrlble." 

The girl flushed but did not answer. To 
tell the truth, the desire to look pretty In the 
eyes of her honest backwoods lover, Joe 
Brown, was gone. 

E 



so OLD SETTLER STORIES 

The young schoolmaster, Mr. Hicks, who 
was to teach the Big Muddy school next year, 
was reported to be very handsome. Bessie 
was to meet him the next Thursday night at 
a party. A party was always a great event 
in the timber countr}^ and the girl wished to 
look as lovely as possible in her new calico. 

She daubed a bit of sorghum molasses on 
the baby's left hand, and hastily stuck on it 
a chicken feather. Pulling this sticky feather, 
first from one hand, then from the other, 
would keep the baby so contented that he 
would not cry. Then, bareheaded, swing- 
ing her sunbonnet by one string, she ran 
merrily through the tiny strip of cornfield 
and plunged into the forest. 

It was dark and cool there. The weather 
had been unusually warm for May, and to 
walk here was a relief. Along the forest path 
she saw delicate pink lady-slippers growing, 
and here and there were low clumps of spider- 
wort. She chased a clumsy whippoorwill 
for several yards, and then, looking carefully 



THE PATTERN 51 

about her for rattlesnakes, she wandered off 
the path to explore a new portion of the 
forest. The sun w^as much lower in the sky 
when she came out in the clearing belonging 
to the Rays'. 

The Ray cabin was built exactly like that 
of the Wiggins', except that it was smaller. 
It was full of bouncing children of all ages 
and sizes, and they overflowed into the yard 
when they heard Bessie's clear call. They 
clung about her like bees to a flower, and 
they pushed her into the house where a big 
pan of molasses taffy was cooling on the 
table. 

"You can help us pull it," cried little Ben 
Ray. He strutted about proudly in his bufl" 
dress, which flared quaintly at the bottom. 

Bessie did stay to help pull it, although 
she knew that she should not do so. After 
the candy had been eaten, she climbed into 
the cabin loft with Anne, who was just her 
own age, to see the coral earrings brought 
from "Old Virginia" recently by one of Mrs. 



52 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

Ray's cousins. These were an heirloom, and 
Anne was to wear them the night of the 
wonderful party. Bessie's heart sank. Who 
would look at her, even in the beautiful new 
calico, if Anne wore in her pretty ears those 
lovely earrings ^ There were none like them 
anywhere in the timber. 

Bessie soberly said good-by, and slipped 
away home, after a sticky kiss from Ben. 
Wrapped in a precious year-old newspaper 
from St. Louis, she carried the treasured pat- 
tern. As she got farther into the forest, the 
memory of the jewels dimmed a little, and 
she danced along, thinking of her finery to 
be. Then suddenly, almost without warn- 
ing, the ague seized her. In a second she 
realized what had happened ; she had lin- 
gered too long at the Rays'. She was now 
a mile from home. Her teeth chattering 
violently, she sat down upon a log to wait 
until the ague should cease. In about half 
an hour the attack was over, but the fierce 
fever came on and burned her through and 



THE PATTERN 53 

through. She rose unsteadily, and tried 
to walk homeward, but the way seemed 
strangely unfamiliar. She realized that she 
was flighty, and tried to call back her every- 
day senses, but they seemed to escape her, 
squeaking and gibbering at her from behind 
every dead stump and little bush. She pur- 
sued one of these strange little creatures for 
miles, and at last she triumphantly brought 
it to bay near a hollow log. She reached out 
to catch it, even though she hated it because 
it had such beady little eyes and wicked little 
tongue. Suddenly she heard a loud cry ; 
then Joe came leaping through the forest 
with a forked stick in his hands. She knew 
no more. 

They told her later that Joe carried her 
home. He had been going through the tim- 
ber hunting for some lost hogs, when he 
caught sight of a blue dress. Going closer 
to discover the owner, he found Bessie sitting 
down near a log. Against this log was coiled 
an angry rattlesnake, ready to strike. Bessie, 



54 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

who was delirious with fever, was just reach- 
ing out her hand to grasp it, when Joe sprang 
forward with his forked stick. He pressed 
the snake's ugly head to the ground and 
swiftly killed the reptile. 

''She was callin' the varmint her common 
sense," said Joe, "and beggin' it to come back 
to her." 

Bessie was none the worse for her adven- 
ture. She soon cut out her green calico by 
the much-prized pattern, made it, and wore 
it to the party. At Christmas time she and 
Joe were married, and they went to live in a 
little new cabin of their own, with great deer 
antlers over the fireplace, and two pretty 
pink shells on a shelf. And the wedding 
gift that Bessie treasured most came from 
Joe's mother. She had had it a long time 
in the bottom of her blue chest. It was a 
pair of coral earrings, every whit as beautiful 
as those of Anne Ray. 



AN ADVENTURE ON THE ROAD 

The Fleming family, who had come to 
Illinois from Indiana in the days of long ago, 
lived in a bend of the Sangamon River, not 
far from where the city of Springfield now 
stands. By hard work Mr. Fleming and his 
half-grown sons had made the usual clear- 
ing in the timber and constructed their rude 
cabin with the ceiling lined with skins for 
protection from the severe cold. In this 
cabin the family lived as happily as any 
family can in a wilderness. By this time 
the Indians had ridden away to the south 
and west, all who had not gone to their own 
mysterious happy hunting-grounds. 

No dangerous wild beast had been seen 
near the Fleming home for over a year, and 
so, when Mary Ellen said she would go to 
the mill, her father did not object. It was 

55 



56 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

in the early fall, and he and the big brothers 
were busy burning stumps and clearing brush 
from the little farm. They begrudged the 
time it would take to ride six miles to the 
mill. This mill stood in a little valley through 
which the creek came rushing ; it was a very 
rough affair of logs run by the cheeriest round 
little miller that ever grew dusty grinding 
corn. He was really the newspaper for the 
countryside. For twenty miles people came 
to have their grain ground, and to hear the 
miller laugh with his fat cheeks, round and 
red, blown out until the mirth exploded 
through his lips. 

It was not the miller, however, who was 
the attraction for Mary Ellen. It was his 
daughter Ruth. Ruth was a slender little 
girl, twelve years old. She had eyes the color 
of the dark blue spiderwort, and her hair was 
as silky and as golden as the silk on the 
Indian maize. Ruth, in spite of her frail 
looks, could climb trees like a monkey, jump- 
ins: from them as nimbly as a goat — in 



AN ADVENTURE ON THE ROAD 57 

short, she was a perfect comrade for wilder- 
ness play. A/Iary Ellen worshiped her, and 
now, when there was sudden need of corn to 
be milled, she begged to go. 

^'Vm 'leven years old," she said, "and 
nothing will hurt me. Fve been with Father 
lots and lots of times." 

"The timber is so thick, and vou mieht 
meet some animal," objected her mother. 

"None's been seen so long I reckon they're 
all killed off," returned her father comfort- 
ably. "It's all right for her to go, I suppose. 
That bear they got down on Crow Creek last 
year must have been the last of his tribe." 

So it was decided that Mary Ellen should 
go. She mounted their one shaggy horse, 
and with a leather bag of grain nicely balanced 
in front of her, she started off on her journey. 

"Daughter, tie your sunbonnet on," cried 
her mother after her, "or you will lose it." 

But the girl, to whom a black sunbonnet 
was an ever present trial, simply pulled the 
covering over her head a little tighter, and 



S8 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

struck old Bess with the flat of her hand to 
make her go faster. 

It was a lovely ride through the timber, 
and Mary Ellen enjoyed every minute of it. 
The cool afternoon shadows lay across the 
open places in queer black patterns, and 
everywhere grew the lovely autumn flowers 
and berries. There was yellow resin-weed 
where the trees were thinnest, as high as the 
horse's back, and the Black-eyed Susans 
lifted cheerful faces from the ground. In the 
deeper timber the delicate wild touch-me- 
nots grew thick, and in mellow shafts of sun- 
light, were thin, fairy-like stalks of golden- 
rod. Once a Kentucky cardinal flashed across 
her path. The little girl let the horse jog 
slowly along while she sang a refrain which 
had been running through her head. 



a 



O sister Phoebe, 

How happy were we 
The night w^e sat under 

The juniper tree." 



i 



AN ADVENTURE ON THE ROAD 59 

She was singing this for the twentieth time 
in her clear voice, when suddenly Old Bess 
stood stock-still. She snorted, and refused 
to go another step. Mary Ellen looked 
around in amazement to see what had 
startled her faithful old friend. To her 
terror, she saw on a branch of a near-by oak, 
a great panther, ready to spring at her. She 
beat the horse frantically with her heels and 
hands then, and tried to make Old Bess run, 
but the animal only stood still, eyeing the 
panther. 

The lithe creature in the tree could wait 
no longer for his prey, and sprang. He 
leaped right at the child's head, and his claws 
caught in the black bonnet. As Alary Ellen 
had not obeyed her mother and tied the 
strings under her chin, the bonnet and the 
panther went to the ground. The girl 
screamed, and the frightened horse plunged 
madly forward ; soon they were fleeing like 
the wind down the trail which led to the jolly 
miller. 



6o 



OLD SETTLER STORIES 




On the Branch of an Oak was a Great Panther Ready to 

Spring at Her. 



AN ADVENTURE ON THE ROAD 6i 

With cheeks of chalk and long hair flying, 
she at last galloped up to the humming mill. 
There she fell in a heap from the horse's back, 
as the dusty miller and his daughter ran out 
to find the cause of the flying hoofs. At first, 
when she told her tale, her friends were in- 
clined to disbelieve her, as no panther had 
been seen in that -portion of the country for 
years. As Mary Ellen repeated her story, 
now with loud sobs, the miller grew serious. 
He left the mill in charge of his women folk, 
and, calling his three brawny sons, they set 
out on the trail over which Mary Ellen had 
come. There they found the torn sunbonnet, 
but of the panther there was not a sign, 
though they hunted long. 

Alary Ellen did not go home that night, for 
she was too upset by her unexpected adven- 
ture. The next day the miller's oldest son 
rode back with her, carrying the corn meal. 
In spite of all her terror and her flying ride, 
the child had somehow clung to the bag of 
corn and brought it safely to the mill. 



62 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

Several weeks later, some men who were 
hunting bee-trees along the creek, came upon 
the panther and killed him. He was an im- 
mense fellow with a tawny skin, and the 
Flemings shuddered as they realized how 
near their daughter came to death in her 
encounter with the savage beast. 

''For once I am glad you did not obey me, 
my child," said Mrs. Fleming. "If your 
sunbonnet strings had been tied, you'd never 
have escaped." 

''So'm I, Mother," returned Mary Ellen, 
clinging to her mother's hand. 

"But I don't think it's a safe rule to follow 
except when panthers are after you, do you, 
Mary Ellen .^" asked her father. 

And Mary Ellen said no. 



THE BARRING OUT ON PANTHER 

CREEK 

One cold December morning in the year 
1850, little Tommy Dean twisted about on his 
uncomfortable seat in the old log schoolhouse 
on Panther Creek. Try as he would, in spite 
of warning glances from the older boys, he 
could not sit still. When would it happen ^ 
How could they manage it ^ What would 
Mr. Dow do .? 

Tommy looked fearfully up to the front of 
the room, where the schoolmaster, Jonathan 
Dow by name, sat on a platform. This long- 
legged master was an unusual character in 
the settlement. Unlike the few teachers who 
had come before him, he refused to ''board 
round" at the different cabins in the district, 
but insisted on boarding himself at the school. 
He lived on a vegetable diet ; he kept apples 

63 



64 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

and potatoes stored beneath the floor of the 
schoolhouse, and occasionally corncakes given 
to him by a pitying housewife. 

To his seventeen pupils, the ''barring out" 
of such a provoking kind of teacher was no 
small problem. A sensible teacher went home 
at night and did not come back until eight 
o'clock the next day. You got there at 
seven, and, aided by your lusty schoolmates, 
you barricaded the door stoutly. When the 
master arrived, you demanded fiercely that 
he promise to treat you to apples and cider. 
If he refused, you held the fort until the 
enemy gave way ; then you let him in. 

At last Tommy's mates thought of a plan, 
and this December morning was to see it 
carried out. No wonder Tommy, who was 
just six, squirmed on his bench. 

Promptly at eleven o'clock, John O'Dell, 
after asking permission, went noisily to the 
little room off the front end of the building. 
This served as both woodshed and cloakroom. 
The outside door to this was not visible from 



THE BARRING OUT ON PANTHER CREEK 65 

the master's platform. In this room, when 
the weather was warm enough, stood the 
water paiL To this pail went John, and 
drank noisily. Presently the waiting pupils 
heard him open the outer door. He came 
back with an important face and went straight 
to Mr. Dow's desk. 

"Phoebe Jones is out there in the sleigh," 
he whispered in a stage whisper, "and she 
wants to talk with you a minute." 

Now Jonathan Dow had been sitting where 
he commanded a view of the road from each 
side of the house, and while the greased 
papers in the windows were dirty, he was 
sure that he would have seen Phoebe, who 
was like the freshness of the morning. He 
had heard or seen no sled on the crisp, spar- 
kling snow. 

Very well, John," smiled the master, "tell 
her to come in and get w^arm." 

She — she said she wanted you to come 
out," hesitated the boy. 

That is impossible," returned the school- 

F 



u 



66 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

master calmly. ^'Spelling class, come for- 
ward." 

*'Aw, let's put him out, fellows!" called 
John angrily, seeing that his clumsy ruse had 
failed. "Come on; he's afraid of us, any- 
way." 

In fact, the rumor had gone around the 
settlement that the master was surely afraid 
of the boys, else why did he not whip them ? 
To be sure, he had a way with him ; every- 
body admitted that — and the pupils obeyed. 
But a good teacher never spared the rod, 
people thought, in those days. That Jona- 
than Dow was not secretlv afraid of them 
never entered the heads of his seven husky 
boys. 

At John's ringing words, bedlam broke 
loose. Benches were overturned, as well as 
the master's rude puncheon desk. Aaron 
Thwill's head went through the greased paper 
of the window on the south, and Aquilla 
Long, before the fray was over, found his 
head being soused up and down in the water 



THE BARRING OUT ON PANTHER CREEK 67 

bucket by Mr. Dow. Seven husky, half- 
grown farmer lads are a problem for any 
teacher to handle, however, and after ten 
minutes of hard fighting, the vegetable-loving 
teacher was thrust out the door. Immedi- 
ately it was slammed behind him, and the 
pupils began a vigorous barricading. They 
suddenly stopped in their work, for the ten 
girls of assorted sizes were most of them 
crying. 

'* Let's send the cry-babies home," said big 
John at last, and forthwith the girls were 
hurried into their cloaks and hoods and out 
into the snow. 

The barricading began anew, but as the 
master had gone away, and showed no inten- 
tion of coming back, the boys at length un- 
barred the door, and came out into the school- 
yard. There they built a snow man, and 
pelted him with snowballs. Finally they 
made a snow^ fort, and had a pitched battle, 
lasting for over a half hour. Their disap- 
pointment because the teacher did not come 



68 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

back was lost in the joy of an unaccustomed 
holiday, and they forgot to keep a sharp look- 
out for the return of Air. Dow. He did not 
appear, however. 

At noon they ate their lunches, with much 
scuffling and laughter, on the master's plat- 
form. When they had chased down every 
stray crumb on their clothes and devoured 
it, they went back into the yard again, and 
made a larger and even grander fort. It was 
barely completed, when Jimmie Schneiders 
saw old Pansy Alitchell coming down the 
road on her lean calico pony. Pansy Mitchell 
was a wrinkled, thin woman who gathered 
herbs all summer long, and went about nurs- 
ing people. 

"I reckon Sam Tolliver's sick again," said 
Jimmie. '^ Here comes Old Pansy." 

The boys by this time were all on the south 
side of the wall of snow, and they raised their 
heads to peer over the bank. Sure enough, 
it was Pansy, dressed in the same old green 
coat with its many capes, each one just a 



THE BARRING OUT ON PANTHER CREEK 69 

little smaller than the other, and the same 
weatherbeaten black sunbonnet which she 
always wore, summer or winter. To their 
surprise, instead of going on down the snowy 
road, she dismounted leisurely, tied the pony, 
and went toward the schoolhouse. Out of 
curiosity the boys kept still. 

*^ Won't she be s'prised," giggled Jimmie, 
"when she finds us all gone.^" 

His companions chuckled, and rolled in 
the snow for joy, as they waited for Pansy's 
amazed face to appear in the doorway. But 
it did not. There was not a sound within 
the schoolhouse. 

The bo}'^s grew curious. Finally Jimmy 
was delegated to creep up to the outer door, 
slip into the cloakroom, and peep into the 
main room to see if Pansy, like Lot's wife, 
had been turned into a pillar of salt. 

Jimmie crept. He peeped. Then he ut- 
tered a strange cry, a cry which brought his 
schoolmates to his side in a hurry. They 
could scarcely believe their eyes, for there 



70 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

on the platform, leisurely reading a book, sat 
the master. Across his knees lay a hickory 
rod, and he absently rolled It a bit now and 
then as he turned a page. On the rude pun- 
cheon desk hung Old Pansy's cloak and sun- 
bonnet. 

''He fooled us!" yelled JImmle. His de- 
light In the master's trick overcame his fear 
of "Old Tickler" lying on the master's knees. 

At that the teacher looked up. The smile 
that then went over his face made every boy 
his sworn friend for life. He rose, put the rod 
in the corner, straightened his frayed cuffs, 
and turned to his flock. 

''I wonder," he drawled, "if a little treat 
of apples and cider would be In season .^" 

Would It ? As If in answer to the joyous 
whoop of the boys, the girls poured Into the 
building. Mr. Dow loosened a puncheon In 
the floor and took from his secret cupboard a 
peck of rosy apples and a brown jug full of 
cider. In addition to this he brought forth 
a rude basket filled with doughnuts. In a 



THE BARRING OUT ON PANTHER CREEK 71 

few seconds there were no happier children 
in the whole west than the boys and girls of 
the Panther Creek school. 

Long was the tale of that barring-out told 
through the timber, and devoted were all the 
boys to the master from that day. The only 
one who had suffered at all was Old Pansy, 
on w^hose cascade of capes Jimmie had spilled 
a cup of cider. 

*'But then," said Old Pansy, as she brewed 
her herbs, *'I reckon it was worth it." 



THE PERILOUS CAPTURE OF SUKEY 

MATILDA 

Once upon a time, a great, great many years 
ago, two little girls stood on opposite banks 
of a muddy winding river in the western 
wilderness. The river w^as the Sangamon, 
and the little girls were Harriet Stevens 
and little Lucy Ward. It was a lovely 
morning In June, but the beauty of the day 
seemed In no wise to have stirred the hearts 
of the small maidens. I grieve to say that 
they were making faces at each other In the 
most unlovely fashion. 

''Yank! Yank! Yank!" taunted Lucy 
from the south side of the river. 

The handful of people making up the Ward 
settlement were from Tennessee and the 
Carolinas. Those of the Stevens settlement 
were from Virginia, Ohio, and New^ York. 

72 



THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY MATILDA 73 

They lived on the north side of the river. 
A mild form of feud existed between the 
two groups. 

*'Go into the house before the Injuns get 
you," retorted Harriet, shaking passionately 
the alder branches w^here she stood, so that 
a shower of white flakes fell dow^n into the 
water. "You know you stepped on my 
farm a-purpose, and I'm never going to 
play with you again." 

"No one wants you-all to," said little 
Lucy, dancing lightly on the yellow sand. 
"And Fm going in the house, and Fvi going 
to have some gooseberry pie." 

She danced away. Small Harriet watched 
her. Then she sat glumly down at the 
foot of the alder bush. Her heart was very 
angry, for Lucy was her best friend, in 
spite of the fact that the two families were 
mild enemies. The two children crossed the 
river, which was unusually low that year, 
by means of a huge oak w^hich had fallen 
across the bed. They had made a play- 



74 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

house in a little wild plum thicket, and crept 
there day by day. These visits were not 
frowned upon by their parents and relatives, 
probably because each little maid came back 
with so much gossip. At that time there 
were practically no newspapers or letters, 
and the coming of a stranger was a great 
event. 

^'She smashed my farm a-purpose," said 
Harriet bitterly. They had made beautiful 
farms in the yellow river sand, building their 
rail fences of twigs, and sticking in blades 
of grass for the Indian corn. Little Lucy, 
suddenly seeing that Harriet's farm was 
much the bigger and grander, in her pre- 
tended search for little white pebbles for 
baby pigs, promptly set her foot on it, ruin- 
ing the entire corn crop. Immediately Har- 
riet ran home. 

She rose now and went into the cabin. 
Both doors were open, and the greased 
paper taken from the windows. The little 
girl went up to her mother, who was 



THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY MATILDA 75 

spinning In the corner. Her oldest sister 
sat by the table stemming wild gooseber- 
ries. 

"I want a piece of corn pone," announced 

the child. 

"Are you hungry already? Well, get 
yourself a piece from the big noggen. There's 
some fresh honey In the jar." 

A noggen was a wooden vessel, dug out 
and occasionally coppered, used for a bowl 
in those days. 

"I don't b'lleve I want honey. Mother." 

Harriet took the cold corn pone and crept 
back the quarter of a mile to the river. 
She hid behind the alder bush when she got 
there. From her hiding place she saw the 
seven men of the Ward family leave with 
their guns for a squirrel hunt. In a few^ 
minutes the rest of the Ward settlement, 
three women and six girls of assorted sizes, 
came forth w4th noggens and homemade 
baskets. They were going out to hunt wild 
raspberries. Harriet saw little Lucy flaunt 



7^ OLD SETTLER STORIES 

her scanty skirt as she gazed across the river 
toward the Stevens settlement. 

''Go on," said Harriet grimly. 'Tm just 
wanting you to go away. When you come 
back, Miss Lucv, vou'll wish vou hadn't 
smashed r^Y farm." 

She waited until the sound of the voices 
died away. Then she skipped fearlessly 
across the log and up to the Ward house, 
which was built within a stone's throw^ of 
the river. Her plan was this : she would 
catch Sukey Matilda, little Lucy's pet hen, 
carry her down the river for some distance, 
and tie her to a tree. Then she would hurrv 
home before any wild animal had time to 
eat the hen, and return with one of her 
family's rough chicken coops. Into this she 
would thrust Sukey and keep her until 
Lucy should weep scalding tears for a week. 
Finally, when she was sufficiently humbled, 
Harriet would give back the fat, fussy hen. 

Sammy was sitting in the doorway of the 
Ward house, eating maple sugar. She knew 



THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY MATILDA ^^ 

he would be somewhere about. Sammy was 
*'not quite bright"; he could not talk al- 
though he was eleven years old, and he w^as 
of no use to work. He was usually left at 
home when his people went nutting or berry- 
ing, as he often got lost or found some- 
thing to cry about for miles. On the other 
hand, he never injured himself or got into 
trouble when he was left alone, although 
the family were careful not to be away from 
him very long. He welcomed Harriet now 
with a smiling grunt, and offered her some 
maple sugar. Harriet took it greedily and 
sat down beside Sammv on the doorsill. 
She ate slowly and with great delight, for 
their own maple sugar had disappeared long 
ago. Her eyes roved about the neat little 
clearing as she rolled the last bit of sweet- 
ness on her tongue. Suddenly her scalp 
lifted and her blood seemed to freeze, for 
in a gap In the timber a half mile away she 
saw an Indian ! Presently he was joined by 
seven or eight more. 



78 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

The few remaining Kickapoos at that time 
were not dangerous. They were at peace 
with the whites, but they usually stole 
everything they could lay hands on. Surely 
they were headed now for the Ward settle- 
ment. Harriet realized instantly that they 
must have seen the owners depart, and 
were now ready to raid as they pleased. 
She must warn her own people, lest the 
savages ford the river farther down and carry 
off the stock unobserved. The men in her 
family, four in number, had gone to the 
mill fifteen miles to the west, and would not 
be back until dark. 

What should she do ^ She must think 
quickly. She would not give up her cher- 
ished plan of revenge. She could see Sukey 
Matilda sunning herself in the dust by the 
log smokehouse. For a moment the child 
looked wildly about. Then her eyes came 
back to the smiling Sammy, still munching 
sugar. 

"Sammy!" she whispered. "The Indians 



THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY MATILDA 79 

are coming ! Go tell my people, while I 
shut up your cows!" 

Sammy smiled. 

*'The Indians'll burn you alive if you 
don't! They'll scalp you!" 

Sammy gurgled joyfully. 

"Oh!" cried the little girl in despair. 
Suddenly a thought came to her. She re- 
membered Sammy's bellow when things went 
wrong with him. She snatched the maple 
sugar from the boy's hand and ran with it 
to the log. He gave a surprised roar, and 
followed. She tolled him across the river 
and up the other bank, then halfway to her 
own house. When she reached the big hick- 
ory, she threw the sugar, as hard and far as 
she could, toward her own cabin. 

"They'll hear him yelling," she reasoned 
sw^iftly, " and come out to see what's the 
matter. He's not been across there for 
months. And he won't find that sugar very 
soon. Then thev'll see the Indians, mavbe." 

She had not planned in vain. Her sturdy 



8o OLD SETTLER STORIES 

little arm had indeed sent the maple cake 
far, and with an outraged bellow Sammy 
raced after it. Harriet listened long enough 
to hear the sound of excited voices coming 
toward him. Then she dropped on her hands 
and knees, and so crawled back across the 
river and toward the house of the enemies. 
She had never before in all her life been so 
frightened, but she meant to have Sukey 
Matilda. The savages had not yet appeared. 
In a few swift leaps she reached the little 
stockade. In it there were two horses and 
cows, besides the ever useful yoke of oxen 
and a dozen squealing pigs. She pulled the 
heavy door to, and swung the heavy bar 
in place on the inside. Next she ran to the 
log barn w^hich stood on one side of the 
stockade, and with difficulty lifted a trap- 
door in the floor. The Wards were proud 
of their excellent barn, and little Lucy had 
often boasted to lier playmate of this door 
and the winding underground passage to 
the house. This was not made so much for 



THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY MATILDA 8i 

a retreat from the Indians as it was for a 
safe passage to the barn in the time of heavy 
snows. 

Harriet crept along this dark underground 
corridor, her heart thumping madly. Luck- 
ily the way was short. Finall}'" she felt 
the door which opened in a side of the big 
cabin. She could not push it open ! Yet 
Lucy had said that they did not keep it 
locked ! 

Finally the door gave an inch, and she 
realized that some article of heavy home- 
made furniture had been placed against it. 
She gritted her teeth and pushed again, 
harder — harder — harder. At last the door 
grudgingly opened, and she crept out into the 
single large room. She crawled across the 
floor and fearfully peered out the window. 
The vard was full of redskins. Thev were 
motioning angrily over the locked stock- 
ade and evidently planning some means 
of breaking into it. As she looked, one of 
them triumphantly caught Sukey Matilda 



82 



OLD SETTLER STORIES 




by one leg and dangled the hen in the air. 
Following his example, several other Indians 
began chasing chickens around the yard, 

until the squawk- 
ings, mixed with 
redskin gutturals, 
made Harriet 
shake in her shoes. 
She began to fear 
indeed for her own 
safety, and to long 
for her mother's 
arms. In a moment the savages might come 
to the house. What would they do to her 
when they found her } They would know^ she 
had barred the stockade. She dared not close 
the cabin door now, for that would attract 
their attention. 

Suddenly she saw the big clock in the 
corner. This great carved clock had come 
from England, and was the pride of the Ward 
family. Out of a little house every hour, 
came one of the twelve disciples and struck 



THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY AIATILDA 83 

the time on a silver bell. The timepiece 
locked with a huge key. Little Lucy had 
said that the key always hung on a raw- 
hide string in one corner of the room. 
Over it was a sunbonnet. 

Harriet crept on her stomach across the 
floor, and then rose cautiously to her feet. 
She felt about with shaking fingers. The 
key was there ! 

She crawled back across the room and 
unlocked the clock door, Inserting the key on 
the inside of the lock. Just as she was 
stepping into her hiding place, she heard a 
wild commotion outside, and into the house 
came running Sukey Matilda, squawking 
madly, her wings outspread. She ran 
straight Into Harriet, who promptly cov- 
ered her with her calico skirt, and then 
shrank back Into the clock. She had no more 
than locked the door, when she heard one of 
the KIckapoos grunt in the cabin. Then, 
there were other grunts, and she guessed 
that the room had filled with savages, seek- 



84 , OLD SETTLER STORIES 

Ing food and plunder. In spite of herself, 
Harriet giggled a tiny scared giggle as she 
tried to imagine how the pursuer of the hen 
looked when he entered the room and found 
that the hen had vanished into thin air. 
The little girl had almost to strangle the 
chicken to keep her quiet, for Sukey was 
determined to tell her woes to the whole 
world. Then, just as the child thought she 
would smother in the warm darkness, she 
heard the excited shout of white men's 
voices, and knew that she was safe. She 
opened the clock door and stepped weakly 
out, while the long-suffering Sukey shot 
out into, the yard, where she flew up into a 
tree and cackled wildly for a full half hour. 
Her rescuer was questioned again and again. 

''Oh, Hattie!" cried Lucy. ''You saved 
Sukey Matilda for me ! And the Indians 
took every other chicken on the place ! 
I'll never, never spoil anything of yours 
agam ! 

Then Lucy's father, big John Ward, in 



THE CAPTURE OF SUKEY MATILDA 85 

his joy swung Harriet to the ceiling. When 
he put her down, Mrs. Ward filled a little 
noggen for her with maple sugar, and took 
her home. 

The Indians had secured nothing but the 
chickens and a crippled pig which had 
somehow escaped the fold. The men of 
the settlement had come just in the nick 
of time ; they had fired a few scattered 
shots at the fleeing savages, but seeing that 
the redskins had no large amount of plunder, 
to avoid serious trouble, they let them go 
in peace. 

They saw^ ELarriet's mother, armed with 
a shotgun, coming down to the river, 
as they crossed on the log. She cried out 
in relief when she saw that the child was 
safe. Guessing from Sammy's unusual ap- 
pearance on the scene that something was 
wrong across the river, she had locked Sammy 
and the members of her family in a cave 
off the cabin, and had bravelv started out to 
find her daughter, and to help her neighbors. 



86 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

After that the two little settlements, each 
with its groups of families all closely related, 
lived peaceably side by side, and Harriet and 
little Lucy began farming again in the yel- 
low sand of the river. 



LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 

The rain poured down the sitting room 
windows as though it would never stop. 
The asphalt pavement in front of the house 
was a shining, hurrying river, and the boy 
who came dismally along to light the old- 
fashioned street lamps looked, as the cook 
said, like a drowned rat. 

Two small noses were pressed against 
the big window in the sitting room, and 
two little voices wailed aloud at a lost Sat- 
urday. Any Saturday was "lost" to the 
Densmore twins, if it rained, for then they 
could not play outdoors. 

''Oh, my !" sighed little Katharine. "Five 
o'clock, and pouring still ! It's 'most as bad 
as going to school, a day like this is." 

Katharine and Benjamin went to the 
training school in the School of Education 

87 



88 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

of the big university in which their father was 
a professor. They rode to school in a pretty 
Hmousine with lavender cushions, and Nora, 
their nurse, always went with them. They 
did not really dislike school, but they in- 
finitely preferred their summers on the old 
farm in Ohio to any wonders which winter 
in the city brought to them. 

*' Don't say school," said Ben crossly. 
" I hate school. I wish the old school would 
burn down." 

Grandmother looked up from her work. 
She was knitting little jackets for the Bel- 
gian babies who had lost their fathers in 
the war. 

'^ Bring your chairs up to the fire," said 
Grandmother comfortably, ^'and I'll tell 
you a story about two children I once knew. 
Their names were — yes, truly — Little Kate 
and Bouncing Ben." 

^'Oh, Grandma!" 

In a moment there were two small heads 
at her knee, and Grandmother, dropping 



LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 89 

her ivory knitting needles, folded her hands 
in her lap and began : 

"Now what do }"ou think? Once upon a 
time this state was covered with heavy tim- 
ber. In this timber there were wolves and 
foxes and deer, and, for a time, even Indians. 
After the early settlers had made their log 
cabins, they drove off the Indians and killed 
most of the wolves ; then they began to 
build schoolhouses for their little children. 

" I'm going to tell you about the one to 
which Little Kate and Bouncing Ben wxnt, 
oh, years and years ago." 

"Did thev ride to school.^" asked Kate. 
"I s'pose they went in a farm wagon." 

"No, they had to walk. And they walked 
two and one half miles twice a day, every 
day, through thick swampy timber, and 
across a creek. There weren't anv wolves 
or bears in the timber, but there were poi- 
sonous snakes, even rattlesnakes, and Little 
Ben always carried a club almost as big as 
himself. 



90 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

"One evening as the children were going 
home, they saw a huge snake lying in the 
path. It was brown with yellow spots on 
it, and at least four feet long. Benj}^, it 
was as big around as my two arms put to- 
gether, and its head was as large as a man's 
fist." 

"Oh, Grandma ! What did Little Ben do .? " 

"In those days children were not so afraid 
of snakes as they are to-day, and these chil- 
dren began to tease the reptile. They threw 
stones and clods at it, and Ben ran toward 
it with his club. The snake was coiled, 
but when he ran at it, it struck at him. 
Then it coiled again. No matter from which 
direction the children tried to approach it, 
the snake turned its head that way and 
fought. Finally it darted its tongue at them 
so fiercely and sprang so angrily that even 
Little Ben was frightened. He snatched 
Kate's hand and they flew home like the 
wind." 

"I would have killed it," said Benjy seri- 



LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 91 

ously, after a long pause. ''But do go on, 
Grandmother ! " 

"The schoolhousc stood in a Ihtle valley. 
It was made of unhewn logs and covered 
with boards which were held in place by 
poles, called w^eight poles. Some of the 
better buildings of the time had floors of 
rough-hewm puncheon, but there was no 
floor to this schoolhouse — think of that, 
Kittykins ! And for windows, they left out 
a log and pasted greased paper over the 
opening to let in the light. This paper w^as 
greased with wild turkey oil. There was no 
glass in that little settlement. The chim- 
ney was made of mud and sticks, and every 
crack in the building was filled with clay to 
keep out the wind." 

"What kind of desks did thev have?" 
asked Benjamin. 

"The desks w^ere just rough, low shelves 
placed on pins driven slantingly into the 
wall," and Grandma illustrated with her 
hands. "The seats were made of split logs 



92 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

with wooden pins driven into them for 
legs. They had no backs at alL" 

''How did the children keep warm, 
Grandma?" 

''In one end of the room there was a big 
fireplace which burned short logs. The big 
boys of the school brought these logs in 
every day. The pupils always gathered 
around the fire to eat their lunches." 

"I think that was a dreadful school," 
said little Katharine. 

"No, it wasn't, dear. Your great-grand- 
mother didn't think so. Nor did your great- 
grandfather." 

"Are you telling about them?^'' cried the 
boy. "Do go on, Grandmother!" 

"What did Great-grandmother have to 
eat at noon .^" asked Katharine with interest. 

"Ah, I don't like to think of that. You 
see, when Kate was a baby, her father leased a 
farm and started to Missouri to make his 
fortune. He didn't make it, and came back 
in a few years. The man to whom he had 



LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 93 

leased the farm for three years refused to 
give it up, and for a long time Kate's family 
were very poor. I am afraid that all Kate 
had to eat for a long time was cornbread, 
made without eggs, crab apple preserves, 
made with molasses instead of sugar, and 
now and then wild plum butter. She sat off 
by herself when she could, so that the rest 
of the pupils couldn't see how little she had." 

^^Oh-h!" 

''What did Ben have to eat.^" asked 
the little bov. 

"Ben's family were prosperous. Little 
Ben was so round that his mother called 
him Bouncing Ben. He brought meat and 
pie and even cake. Many times he shared 
his lunch with Little Kate." 

"Did Kate have to sew in that school. 
Grandma.^" asked Katharine. "How could 
a man teach 3^ou to sew.^" 

"He didn't. They didn't teach cooking 
and sewing and manual training in those 
days. These children I am telling you about 



94 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

studied writing, arithmetic, and reading. 
Run upstairs to my room, Benjy, and ask 
Martha to give you the book lying on my 
desk. I came across It In an old trunk In the 
attic this morning." 

Benjy flew upstairs. He was soon back 
with the book, which he held out carefully 
before him. 

''In the year 1830 books were very, very 
scarce and expensive. This arithmetic cost 
five dollars, and it's all made by hand. It 
was Ben's, but later he gave It to Kate. 
You see It's just the size to carry In the side 
pocket of a coat. There are ninety-one 
pages In It, and every problem Is written In 
a beautiful flowing hand. 

" First, as we open the book, we find the 
definition of arithmetic. 'Arithmetic Is the 
art of computing by numbers.' Then the 
maker takes up addition, subtraction, mul- 
tiplication, division. Later you find tables of 
weights and measures, single and double rule 
of three, and vulgar and decimal fractions. 



LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 95 

"It's bound In leather, and was used in the 
old Field school, in Campbell county, Vir- 
ginia, before it came to the wilderness. On 
each large Southern plantation there was 
usually one man trained to make shoes for 
everybody there, and I suppose some such 
man bound this book. Can't you imagine 
some schoolmaster carefully writing it, page 
upon page, by the light of a tallow candle ? 
And can't you imagine the delight of some 
little boy when the book was given to him ?" 

"Katharine, here's a problem in verse," 
cried Benjamin, who had been turning through 
the book. "Read it, please, Grandma." 

*' An ingot of silver that weighed three pounds 
Was sent by a smith to be made into spoons. 
The number returned was seven times three, 
Each an ounce and ten grains as near as could be. 
Now, answer my question, forget not the rhyme. 
And tell me what silver and dross were behind." 

"I don't believe that Miss Dudley, my 
teacher, could work that," said Benjamin 
seriously. 



96 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

^'Now let me tell you some more about 
Great-grandmother's school. Mr. Peyton, 
the schoolmaster, believed in what was called 
the 'loud school.' He had all the chil- 
dren recite their lessons at once, and at the 
top of their voices. Sometimes, while the 
whole school was shouting, he took down 
his fiddle and played Old Zip Coon as fast 
as he could." 

''Vd like to go to that kind of school," 
cried Benjamin, with shining eyes. 

''But sometimes he took down something 
other than a fiddle. On two wooden pins 
behind his desk there were several hickorv 
rods. If you didn't work, you got two 
blows from one of these. If you fought, 
vou 2:ot ten." 

"And if you didn't know your lessons t " 

"Then you might get one or you might 
get a dozen. You mustn't blame the school- 
master too much, though. Often his pupils 
were large and headstrong, and he had to 
make them obey. 



LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 97 

'' Mr. Peyton chopped timber at night and 
on Saturdays to help make a living. He 
was not paid in money for his teaching, but in 
dried pumpkin, buckwheat, corn, dried apples, 
hams — any farm produce, in fact. At the 
end of a term Ben saw him load all his col- 
lection into a farm wagon and drive to 
Chicago, fifty miles away. There he traded 
it for the things he needed." 

There was a little silence while Grand- 
mother's small listeners leaned harder on 
her knee as they considered gravely the 
shopping trip of a schoolmaster of long ago. 

"What did Great-grandmother and Great- 
grandfather do at noon, and at recess.^" 
asked Benjamin finally. 

"The children had onlv an hour at 
noon, for in summer school began at seven 
o'clock, and in winter at half past seven. 
This was so that the children who lived 
several miles away could get home before 
dark. Sometimes at noon the girls sought 
out a beautiful spot in the woods and made 
II 



98 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

playhouses. Thev made beds out of sassa- 
fras and hickory leaves, and used a stump 
for a table, if one was near. Acorns fur- 
nished them cups and saucers. Sometimes 
the bigger girls carried moss and carefully 
packed it down firmly for carpets. 

'^ The boys usually played what they called 
'Town Ball.' It was a great deal like 
the baseball of to-dav. They never tired 
of it. In the winter they threw snowballs 
and coasted downhill on homemade sleds. 
In the spring they hunted green hickory 
buds to eat, and the sassafras shoots where 
they came up fresh and tender. In the 
fall they hunted paw-paws, and persimmons, 
as well as walnuts, hazel nuts, and hickory 
nuts." 

*'Oh-h," breathed Benjamin again, "how 
I wish I had lived then ! Tell us some 
more. Grandmother." 

"No, not to-night," smiled the dear old 
lady, putting away her knitting, "for I hear 
your father's step. But the next rainy 



LITTLE KATE AND BOUNCING BEN 99 

day that comes I'll show you Little Kate's 
button string (charm string they called it 
then) and tell you all about it. Now kiss 
your father and ask him if he can work 
the problem in Bouncing Ben's arithmetic." 
And with a shout the children obeyed. 



A VILLAGE FRANKLIN 

This is the true story of a boy who was 
always trying to invent something. This 
boy, WiUiam Bramble, lived in the Middle 
West in those earlv davs when the black 
bear and the prairie wolf prowled over the 
country. The driving back of these and 
other animals and the wresting of a living 
from the soil were thoughts which hardly 
ever entered William's mind. Day and night 
this boy dreamed in terms of mechanics, 
and week after week he became more and 
more of a problem to his mother and father. 
They needed his help in the new country to 
which they had emigrated from Maryland. 

William's father finally gave up farming 
and kept an inn. He moved several times, 
every time starting to run a new tavern in 
a new town. Now he wished for his spn's 

lOQ 



A VILLAGE FRANKLIN loi 

help more than ever. A twelve-year-old boy 
would be very useful in watering and feeding 
the horses of travelers, in waiting on the 
table, and in running errands. At the busi- 
est times, however, the innkeeper usually 
found his son — if he found him at all — 
tinkering over some rough bit of machinery. 
Sometimes he was drawing with a bit of 
charcoal on a fairly smooth board. In those 
days a smooth board was hard to find. 

At last William's father bought a farm, 
and went to live on it with his wife and four 
children. Here William was of a little more 
use, but his father felt disappointed in him 
still. Even the mother grew tired of the 
boy's various mechanical contrivances, which 
always fell short of w^orking. 

When William was seventeen, his father 
died, and he had to give up his dreaming 
and face the future serioush^. For two years 
he turned his attention to farming, and all 
the good folk of the neighborhood nodded 
their heads in approval. When he was nine- 



102 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

teen he married a pretty young wife with a 
face like a violet. He decided to keep on 
farming, for, in spite of the hard work, he 
began to take great pride in the fields which 
he and his young bride plowed with the 
slow oxen. But his mind was too full of 
machines and machinery, however, and the 
rail fences which the stock knocked down 
were never put back. His pigs got out of 
their pen and nosed in contentment all over 
the farm, while some of them even ran 
away into the woods and became wild pigs. 
Finally one of his oxen died, and the young 
couple then felt very sad and hopeless. 

About 1 841, however, the neighbors saw 
the fruit of William's lonely nights spent 
in a corner of the barn, for he worked there 
continually, by the light of a rude lantern. 
He had made a cultivator, a machine for 
plowing corn, which was really successful. 
In pride and joy he patented it. His young 
wife lifted her head high once more, and she 
blossomed out in a new calico dress and a 



A VILLAGE FRANKLIN 103 

straw bonnet with blue flowers on it. It 
tied with blue ribbons under her chin. 
Then William was an honored man in the 
community. He began to repair his rail 
fences, and he talked of buying another ox. 
The cultivator was a great success, and 
money began to pour in upon the inventor. 
He determined to sell the little farm and 
move to Lafayette, a town in Indiana, where 
he would keep a grand inn, as his father had 
done before him. The farm was sold to a 
young man who had pushed northward from 
the mountains of Kentucky. William and 
his wife moved to town and William built his 
tavern. He named it Fountain Rise, and 
for a few years he ran it with a fair degree 
of success. The stagecoach dropped at its 
hospitable door many a weary traveler who 
was glad to step into the warm kitchen, 
sniff the fragrance of the meat on the spit, 
and think of high, warm, clean featherbeds 
awaiting tired bodies in the rooms above. 
Bramble now hired people to do most of 



I04 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

the work, while he toiled over another in- 
vention. This was a grain scale by which 
grain could be measured and weighed. He 
grew more and more wrapped up in this, and 
the light burned in his little back room 
hours in the night. 

"Bramble is crazy," the townsfolk began 
to say. His wife no longer had pretty 
calico dresses and bonnets with bright rib- 
bons. She worked harder than ever to make 
the inn a success, and to cover up her hus- 
band's failures in management. The money 
received for the sale of the farm was all gone. 

For eleven long, long years William worked 
at his grain scale, adding to it, taking away, 
until there was quite a scrapheap of machinery 
in one corner of the stable. He had again 
moved his workshop to the barn. 

Then, one glad fall day, he placed on 
exhibition a grain scale which not only 
measured grain, but gave the number of 
bushels and calculated the amount the grain 
came to at the current price ! You can 



A VILLAGE FRANKLIN 105 

imagine how the people crowded around the 
successful inventor. They shook hands with 
him ; they shouted his name ; they carried 
him on their shoulders from one end of the 
village to the other. His wife went down 
on her knees in her bedroom and thanked 
God that William's tinkering had come to 
something at last. 

In six weeks William had sold ^47,000 
worth of ''rights to territory." With the 
gains he built a big hotel called the Bramble 
House. This w^as the biggest inn there- 
abouts. But alas ! His joy was short-lived. 
His scale worked all right for small quanti- 
ties of grain, but not for large ones. Be- 
cause of this failure, the Bramble House 
was swept away. As William was a true and 
honest man, he gave their money back to 
the buyers. He was left without a dollar, 
and he and his wife had to face once more 
the problem of making a living. Luckily 
for the man, a friend of his, a banker, came 
to him at this time. 



io6 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

"William," said he, "if you had time, 
all the time you wished, could you remedy 
the faults in your scale?" 

"Indeed I could," replied the inventor 
eagerly. 

Mr. Reynolds gave him a check for two 
thousand dollars, and told him to go on 
with the good work. In five weeks the in- 
ventor had made a machine which worked 
without a flaw. This new scale weighed 
all grain poured into the hopper, discharged 
itself while the wheat was still running, 
and kept its own accounts. The machinery 
was very simple. William at once took 
out several patents to cover the invention 
and its improvements. He also opened an 
office, and in a short time he sold many 
thousand dollars' worth of rights. He was 
cheated out of the most of this monev bv 
his partner, a man who had scarcely a dollar 
when he was taken into partnership. 

Still undaunted, the inventor exhibited 
his scale in every state in the Union. It 



A VILLAGE FRANKLIN 107 

won a medal at the New York American 
Institute. At the World's Fair in Crystal 
Palace, New York, he was given the best 
location, and his exhibit drew immense 
crowds. 

Later William sent a man to Europe to 
take out patents in his name, but the man 
was never heard of again. It seemed as if 
disaster must follow every move William 
made. 

Finally he determined to go farther west. 
This was in 1857. He located in Ohio, 
then a wilderness partly covered with water. 
Finding this hardly endurable, he forged on 
to Decatur, Illinois. Decatur was then a 
tiny thriving village in the unsettled coun- 
try. Something in the town attracted the 
hapless young man. He decided to locate 
there, although he did not know a single 
person in the place. He had no money, 
either, but the sale of some beautiful furni- 
ture he had saved, brought him a small 
sum. With this he bought a tiny patch 



io8 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

of ground and built a rough shed without 
a floor. Into this shed he moved a costly 
piano and other pieces of beautiful and 
graceful furniture. Many a curious Deca- 
tur housewife looked in to see his mahogany 
highboy and polished table. 

From then on, some measure of success 
followed his efforts. He put aside, as nearly 
as he could, all thoughts of inventing, and 
with his two sons began making bricks ! 
It was his first experience, but he did it 
well, and he and his sons built with their 
own hands a fine brick house. 

He could not long keep his mind off ma- 
chinery, however. He patented an improved 
bedstead. Bramble's Spring Rockaway Bed. 
Some of your great-grandmothers have slept 
on these beds. 

Next he invented a post office lock box, 
and had it patented. He showed it to a 
postmaster in Boston, who agreed to use it. 
A lock manufacturer in Connecticut adopted 
his ideas, even though Bramble had a patent. 



A VILLAGE FRANKLIN 109 

and began manufacturing boxes. Out of 
this grew a contest, and afterwards Mr. 
Bramble brought suit in the United States 
courts. A compromise was made, and after 
that William received a royalty on every 
post office box sold in the United States. 
He invented a complete line of door locks 
and padlocks ; these were said to be the best 
ever sold in our country. 

Decatur is now a roaring, thriving city, 
and William's Rockaway Bed and Yale lock 
are now either forgotten or else accepted as 
a matter of course. The story of his grit 
and perseverance in those early days can 
never be wholly forgotten, however, and the 
town still points proudly to her village 
Franklin. 



A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 

In the fall of 1822, a ''Virginia wagon" 
stopped in the neighborhood of a beautiful 
grove near the central part of Illinois. 
From this wagon descended a pioneer and his 
family, bravely gazing about at the unsettled 
country which was to be their new home. 
Besides Mr. and Mrs. Hollingsworth there 
were two children, a boy aged four, and little 
Susan, a dumpling only a year old. Mr. 
Hollingsworth's brother, Jason, accompanied 
him also. The children were fretful after 
their long journey through the wilderness, 
but the mother and father, as tired as they 
were, stood gazing at the glorious coloring 
spread before them. The oaks were a 
mighty blaze of red and orange, and the 
maples were each a flaming sunset. Up 
the trunks of the trees ran the scarlet wood- 



no 



A CHRISTAIAS OF LONG AGO in 

bine, and in a tangled thicket of wild crab 
apples they saw the lovely berries of the 
bittersweet. 

"Let us build here," said Mrs. Holllngs- 
worth, gently hushing the child in her arms. 

*'No place could be prettier," answered 
her husband. "I hear a spring trickling, 
too. We will have water near at hand." 

Immediately the two men set to work to 
build a "linn bark camp" in which they 
would live until the cabin could be built. 
This was a rough structure with three closed 
sides ; the floor and roof were made of linn 
bark. It furnished a fair protection In case 
of bad weather, and kept off the heavy dews. 

In a short time a tiny cabin was ready 
for the family, and Mrs. Holllngs worth hap- 
pily spread her great ticks of goose feathers 
on the rude beds and covered them with her 
bright patchwork quilts. Mr. Holllngsw^orth 
killed wild turkeys for oil for a homemade 
lamp, which was made by placing a twisted 
flannel strip in a saucer of oil. 



112 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

It was while the men were building a rail 
fence that the first hint of trouble came. 
Out of the timber, without warning, rode 
a group of Indian braves. They were not 
in war paint, but they were plainly hostile. 
The leader was Machina, the chief of the 
Kickapoos. Dressed in his scarlet blanket, 
he strode up to the white men, muttering. 
At the same time he threw a handful of 
maple leaves into the air. 

"What does he mean.?" cried Mrs. Hol- 
llngsworth In terror. 

Her husband's face was grave as he an- 
swered. ''He is jealous because we have 
come here. He says that we must go to 
the other side of the river before the leaves 
fall, or the Kickapoos will kill all the "boota- 
nas (white men)." 

Still muttering, Machina and his stal- 
wart braves went back into the forest. 

Then what anxious days for the pioneers ! 
There was not a house between them and 
Chicago, one hundred and fifty miles away. 



A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 113 




He Threw a Handful of Maple Leaves into the Air. 



114 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

They must depend upon themselves in case 
of attack. The men seldom went far from 
the cabin, and they taught Mrs. Holllngs- 
worth how to handle a shotgun. The matter 
was reported to the Indian agent thirty miles 
to the south, and he said that, although the 
chief had signed a treaty giving up the 
lands to the whites, he had refused to abide 
by it. He had been too ill to treat with 
the men himself, and had sent his son, who 
had signed the articles giving up the land. 
When the Indian agent told Machina this, 
the chief said, ''My heart did not go 
with it." 

''We cannot leave," said Mr. Hollings- 
worth. "We can't start back at this time 
of the year. And if we crossed the Sanga- 
mon, we wouldn't be any safer, probably." 

So the days wore on. In the late fall, 
fifteen Indians, carrying a deer which they 
had killed, camped in front of the little 
house. Mrs. Hollingsworth was at first 
crazed with fright. She rushed out of the 



A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 115 

cabin and pointed at the oak leaves, which 
were still hanging on the trees. 

"No, no!" she cried. "Leaves no fall 
yet! Go away!" 

The Indians grunted, and began to get 
ready their supper. Old Machina sullenly 
borrowed a kettle from the white woman. 
Into this he dropped the head of the deer 
and boiled it for a short time. Then he 
made broth by mixing in meal, and the 
stolid Indians ate their supper. Evidently 
thev were not bent on mischief. 

All the fore part of the winter the Kick- 
apoos camped in front of the cabin, and the 
little family now no longer feared them. 
Two of the squaws, "Aunt Peggy" and 
"Aunt Nancy," soon grew fond of the 
baby, and they made her tiny buckskin 
clothes. 

The twelfth of December, Jason rode fifty 
miles to the south and came back with a 
bride, apple-cheeked Keturah Pancake, who 
had come with her family from Tennessee. 



ii6 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

The young husband and wife were to live 
with the HoUingsworths during the w^inter. 

That night as they sat before the great 
fireplace, Keturah confessed that she had 
never in any way celebrated Christmas, 
and that she had never given or received 
a Christmas present. 

''Dear heart alive!" cried Mrs. Hollings- 
worth. "Can that be true?" 

''It's true," said Keturah smiling. 
"There were always so many of us, and father 
was so poor, that we never even dreamed 
of presents. We always tried to have a 
little better dinner than usual on Christ- 
mas Day, and that was all. Sometimes we 
didn't even have that." 

Mrs. HoUingsworth said no more, but 
she lay awake long that night, planning 
a wilderness Christmas for her small family. 
She did not have many days in which to 
w^ork, but she thought that she could in 
some way make a small gift for every one. 
Finally she fell asleep. 



A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 117 

The next day, while her husband and the 
young people were in the woods, she took 
from her big chest in the corner her most 
prized possession. She looked at it with 
her head on one side and smiled at it a bit 
sadly. Yes, it must go to Keturah, for of 
course she could not get to town before 
the holiday to sell any more butter. But- 
ter brought seven cents in trade at that 
time of the vear. 

When she had closed the chest, she took 
down from a peg on the outside of the house, 
a big buckskin. This she began to tan by 
soaking it in wxak Xyt water in a rough trough 
dug out of a log. After this was finished, 
she scraped the skin with a sharp knife to 
take off the hair and the grain. Next she 
soaked it a long time in the brains of a deer 
which old Machina obligingly gave her. 
Last of all, she washed it in soapsuds and 
laboriously colored it by smoking it. 

''Aunt Peggy" now^ took the skin, and, 
by rubbing it and pulling it, she made it 



ii8 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

soft and smooth. Then, sitting down in 
front of the great fireplace, she cut out and 
made for little Jared a suit of buckskin clothes 
such as little Indian boys wore. When it 
was fringed and beaded with a few precious 
blue beads, it was put away until Christ- 
mas morning. Little Jared had by this 
tijne become so used to the Indians that 
he did not pay any attention to Aunt Peggy 
as she worked by the fire. 

Next, with Keturah's help, Mrs. Hol- 
lingsworth made a buckskin shirt for her 
husband and his brother. These they dyed 
with walnut hulls and hickory smoke, and 
when they were finished they were placed 
in the big chest with Jared's gift and the 
precious package for Keturah. 

It was now the day before Christmas. 

''I will get some prairie chickens," said 
Mr. HoUingsworth, taking down his shotgun. 

He was hastening along on the crust of 
the snow, when he saw in the distance a 
number of the birds he wished. To reach 



A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 119 

them he had to cross a small slough. Just 
as he reached the middle of this, the crust 
broke, and he went down. He threw his 
gun on the top of the crust, and tried to 
work loose. The more he worked, the deeper 
down he went, until finally the snow closed 
over his head. He was desperate for a mo- 
ment. Then he struggled until he had 
packed enough snow beneath him to gain a 
firm foothold. He continued to pack the 
snow until he rose high enough to crawl out 
upon the crust. The thin sunlight lay every- 
where ; it was a beautiful day ; and only the 
hole in the snow bore witness to his dis- 
aster. 

Mr. HoUingsworth went on his w^ay, and 
before evening came, he had a great string 
of prairie chickens. He went home by a 
different route, to avoid the slough, and 
handed the game to his wife. Some of them 
she would hang up to dry, but most of them 
would be used for the long-expected Christ- 
mas dinner. Of his accident he said noth- 



120 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

Ing ; he simply gave the children an extra 
dance on his knee. 

The great event of that evening was the 
bringing in of the Christmas log. The cabin, 
which was about twenty-five feet square, 
had been built with doors opposite each 
other on the west and east, and an immense 
fireplace on the south. This fireplace would 
actually hold logs twenty feet long and two 
or three feet thick. 

Mr. Hollingsworth brought from the stable 
his four yokes of oxen. With these he 
dragged a great log toward the cabin. One 
end of this log was dragged as near the east 
door as it could be got by pulling it at right 
angles. Then the men went with the oxen 
to the other side of the house and passed a 
log chain from the animals through the door, 
across the house, and out to the end of the 
log, where it was attached. Then the oxen 
pulled the log into the house, end foremost. 
After that the two men, with the help of the 
Indians, rolled it into place. 



A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 121 

*'It will burn from five to seven days," 
said Mrs. Hollingsworth contentedly. 

They went to bed early on Christmas eve, 
for the next mornin? thev were to ride 
twenty miles through the woods to a small 
settlement south of them. Here for the 
first time Christmas exercises were to be 
held in a tiny log church. They must start 
very early in order to be there on time, 
and to get back in time to have the big Christ- 
mas dinner in the early part of the after- 
noon. 

After all, Keturah was the first one up 
the next morning. She silently crept from 
her bed in the loft and dressed with shaking 
fingers. It was not yet daylight as she 
drew from under her bed a basketful of 
bittersweet berries and the great scarlet 
hips of the wild rose, which in that part of 
the country grew higher than Jason's head. 
With her treasures she crept down the lad- 
der from the loft and crouched on her knees 
before the smoldering log. With a little 



122 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

punching and a little blowing she soon had 
a merry blaze at one end of the fireplace, 
and in the warmth of this she basked for 
some time. In the other end of the room 
slept the Hollingsworths, all unaware that 
a Christmas angel was on their hearth. 

As soon as the first hint of dawn crept 
into the room, Keturah poked the fire harder, 
and by its light she plied busy fingers. By 
means of homespun thread she made four 
lovely wreaths of bittersweet berries, and 
two of rosehips. One such bittersweet 
wreath as hers exhibited in a florist's win- 
dow to-day, at least in the Middle West, 
would attract endless attention and bring 
a fabulous sum, for the scarlet and orange 
berries are seldom found now. 

Just as Keturah had hung the last lovely 
wreath over a corner of the settle, small 
Jared opened his round eyes and bounced 
out of bed. Immediately the whole family 
awoke. Then what a crying of "Christ- 
mas Gift" from loft and first floor! What a 



A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 123 

hurrying Into clothes ; what a breathing 
upon frosty fingers ! Air. HoUingsworth 
poked at the great log until the sparks flew 
madly up the chimney, and the great chain 
across the fireplace swayed slowly to and 
fro. On this chain would be hung the pots 
in which the dinner should cook. 

When he had given one glance at the sky, 
Mr. HoUingsworth shook his head. It was 
a dark gray, and already thick snow was 
falling. The Indian tepees were white. 

''We can't go to the services," he said 
regretfully, "for it's going to snow hard, 
and we might get lost coming back." 

There was great disappointment in the 
cabin then, but the pioneers of those days 
accepted things without whining. These of 
Blooming Grove ate their mush and milk 
cheerfully, admired the WTcaths, and sat 
about the hearth cracking walnuts and eat- 
ing apples. 

Soon it was time to get dinner. The two 
women fried the prairie chickens, stewing 



124 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

a few of the older ones. They stewed, too, 
the ^^pumpkln leather" and the "peach 
leather" which they had taken down from 
the loft the day before. In those days 
there were no glass cans in which to pre- 
serve fruit for the winter. The man of 
the house made several smooth boards. The 
pumpkin or peach was ''stewed down," and 
then spread thinly on the boards to dry. 
When dry, it was called ''leather." 

From the loft, too, came the wild potatoes 
which had grown in the creek bottoms and 
the sloughs. These were little black things 
about the size of an egg, and they were 
especially good when roasted. They had a 
different flavor from Irish potatoes. Little 
Jared was very fond of them. "Taters," 
he called them. 

Keturah flew busily about, just as if she 
had alwavs worked in this cabin near the 
river. She made one laughable mistake, 
although it did not seem funny to the fam- 
ily for several days afterward. A peddler — 



A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 125 

and peddlers were about as rare at that 
time as wandering knights — had sold to 
Mrs. Holllngsworth several weeks before a 
pound of roasted coffee. The family had 
not tasted coffee since they left Virginia ; 
like the other pioneers, tea made from roots 
and herbs had furnished their only hot 
drink. As a great surprise and treat for her 
husband, Mrs. Holllngsworth had planned a 
great potful of coffee for dinner. While she 
was out In the yard, however, Keturah, who 
had never seen coffee, boiled It along w^Ith 
some venison ! 

At last the great dinner was ready. The 
Indians, all but Aunt Nancy, filed In from 
the yard, shaking themselves with many 
an "Ugh! Ugh!" and stamping off the 
snow. At the head of the long table sat 
the white people ; at the foot sat the stolid 
Kickapoos. Their food was served to them 
in big kettles, and they ate In native fashion. 
All the while the snow fell faster and faster, 
until the forest was a wonderland of white. 



126 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

After the last morsel had been eaten — 
and by this time it was three o'clock — the 
table was cleared and pushed to the north 
end of the room. Mr. Hollingsworth, who 
had put on, in honor of the occasion, his 
best homespun clothes, rose to his feet and 
lifted his hand for silence. 

''My friends," he said, ''let us now hear 
the word of God." 

All were immediately silent except old 
Machina. He sat in one corner jogging the 
little white papoose upon his knee, all the 
while singing in a monotone, "He-o, he-o, 
me-yok-o-ne, me-yok-o-ne." 

When the old chief ceased, Mr. Hollings- 
worth recited from memory the words he 
had heard at his mother's knee : 

"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem 
of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, 
behold, there came wise men from the east to 
Jerusalem, saying, where is he that is born 
King of the Jews ^ for we have seen his star 
in the east, and are come to worship him," 



A CHRISTMAS OF LONG AGO 127 

Then there was a brief prayer. Mr. Hol- 
llngsworth thanked God for a safe journey 
through the wilderness, and for the friends 
who awaited them, 

"Bless Thou, O Lord," he called in his 
deep voice, "these savage hearts that wor- 
ship with us to-day. Bless Thou the little 
Christmas child who lies outside. And lead 
us safely through another year. Amen." 

Aunt Nancy had a little Christmas Indian 
baby ! Jared was wild to see it, but his 
mother said a Christmas baby was too 
young to receive callers, and that he must 
wait until New Year's Dav. 

Then the Christmas presents were given. 
Jason and Mr. Hollingsworth were delighted 
with their new shirts, and Jared was so proud 
of his clothes that he refused to let them 
be taken away. Keturah had made for 
every one a small "split" basket (made of 
thinly split wood) full of walnut taffy. And 
last of all, Mrs. Hollingsworth gave to her 
sister-in-law the precious package from the 



128 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

chest. It was a blue and white calico dress. 
Keturah's eyes filled with tears as she took 
it, and she could hardly believe that it was 
hers. 

So the afternoon wore on, until the day 
was done. The Indians filed back to their 
tents, and the Hollingsworths gathered 
around their fire, singing hymns and talk- 
ing of the days in old Virginia. 

Then the Christmas stars came out one 
by one and shone softly down on the log 
cabin in the wilderness, and on the tent 
which sheltered the little Christmas baby. 



THE PIASA BIRD 

It was a misty day In the year 1673. Down 
the Mississippi River came two canoes. In 
each canoe were a white man and several sav- 
ages. The white men were Jacques Mar- 
quette and Louis JoHet, the explorers. Both 
men glanced eagerly about as the canoes shot 
forward in the light mist of the June day. It 
seemed as if the rain would be over any min- 
ute, and the sun break through the clouds. 
Suddenly the river turned, and the boats 
crept like tiny insects on the water past great 
high rocks which in their length and grandeur 
filled the explorers w4th awe. Suddenly one 
of the Indians pointed at the smooth face of 
the bluff. The white men stared and then 
shuddered a little, for the sight that met their 
eyes was certainly an uncanny one to come 
across in a wild countrv. On this bluff were 

K I2Q 



I30 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

two painted monsters about the size of a calf. 
These horrible creatures, on which the bold- 
est savage would gaze but a moment or so, 
were painted in red, green, and black, and 
were so carefully drawn that Joliet and Mar- 
quette felt sure that no Indian could have 
pal-nted them. Besides, what human being 
could reach a place so high as that rock to 
paint them ? 

These beings each had a face somewhat 
like a man's, only it was covered with scales. 
The horns on their heads were like those of a 
deer, and each had a beard like a tiger's. 
The wings were those of a monstrous bird, 
and the slimy tail was so long that it passed 
around the body, went up over the head and 
then back between the legs, ending in the 
tail of a fish. 

Marquette made a drawing of one of these 
strange birds, but later, unfortunately, this 
was lost. He and Joliet went on down the 
river, and it remained for another man. Dr. 
John Russell, to tell the meaning of the paint- 



THE PIASA BIRD 



131 




The Piasa Bird. 



132 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

ing on the rock. He interpreted the name, 
*^Piasa" as being "the bird that devours 
men." Then he discovered the following 
Indian tradition. 

Many, many moons before the palefaces 
came to the green prairie, there lived a bird 
so big that he could easily carry off in his 
talons a large deer. One day when hunting 
was bad, he flew dow^n upon an Indian, and 
carried him off. From that day on, this ter- 
rible bird scorned deer flesh, and ahvays 
hunted men. No Indian w^as wily enough 
to escape his keen red eyes ; he would dart 
suddenly down upon the strongest brave and 
carry him off to a lonely cave to eat him. 
Hundreds and hundreds of mighty warriors 
tried to destroy this bird, but all their shoot- 
ing, all their snaring, failed. Sometimes every 
soul in a village was eaten. Then all the 
tribes of the Illini began crying, "What shall 
we do.?" 

Up then rose Ouatogo, their great chief. 
His fame extended clear beyond the great lakes. 



THE PIASA BIRD 133 

'^I will go apart from my tribe," he said. 
^'I will fast in solitude. I will ask the Great 
Spirit to protect my children from the Piasa." 

So Ouatogo went apart. He covered his 
head with his blanket and fasted. On the 
last night of the fast, the Great Spirit came to 
him. 

'^ Select twenty of your bravest w^arriors," 
said the Great Spirit. '*Arm each with a 
bow and poisoned arrows. Conceal them 
near the big bluff; near this place let stand 
another warrior in the open, a victim for the 
Piasa. When the Piasa comes, let all the 
warriors shoot at once as he swoops upon his 
prey." 

When the chief awoke from this dream of 
the Great Spirit, he thanked him. Then he 
returned to his tribe and told them his vision. 

''I," said Ouatogo, "will be the victim." 

You see this great chief was willing to die 
for his people. 

He placed himself in open view on the 
bluffs. Soon he saw the Piasa bird hovering 



134 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

In the air. He perched on the cliff and eyed 
his prey. The chief drew up his manly 
form to the utmost height, and planting his 
feet firmly on the earth, he began to chant 
the death-song of an Indian warrior. The 
moment after, the Piasa rose into the air, and, 
swift as the thunderbolt, darted down on his 
victim. Scarcely had the horrid creature 
reached his prey before every bow was sprung 
and every arrow was sent quivering to the 
feather into his body. The Piasa uttered a 
fearful scream that sounded far over the 
opposite side of the river, and expired. Oua- 
togo was unharmed. Not an arrow, not even 
the talons of the bird, had touched him. The 
Master of Life, in admiration of Ouatogo's 
deed, had held over him an invisible shield. 
There was the wildest rejoicing among the 
mini, and the brave chief was carried in tri- 
umph to the council house, where it was sol- 
emnly agreed that, in memory of the great 
event in their nation's history, the image of 
the Piasa should be engraved on the bluff. 



II 



THE PIASA BIRD 135 

Even as late as 1836 an Indian never passed 
the rock without firing his gun at the image 
of the Piasa. The marks of the balls on the 
rock were so many that you could not possibly 
count them. 

It is said that Dr. Russell examined a cave 
w4iich tradition said was one of those to which 
the terrible bird carried his victims. From 
the entrance to this cavern you could see the 
smooth, calm waters of the Mississippi, be- 
neath the rock. In the cavern, however, was 
a gruesome sight. The floor of the cave was 
one mass of human bones. Dr. Russell and 
his guide dug down for a depth of four feet 
in every part of the cave — it was about 
twenty by thirty feet — and still found only 
bones. The skeletons of thousands of people 
were there. 

What is the true story of the Piasa bird ^ 
That you and I will probably never know. 
The secret perished with the red men long, 
long ago, and all we have is the doubtful 
tradition of the Illinl. 



YOUNG JOHN GOES TO MARKET 

There lived on the prairies long, long ago 
when the prairie grass grew high, a family 
named Burchance. In the family there was 
one son, John, who was a dreamer. His 
dreams never by any chance took a practical 
turn. He used to like to w^atch the dawn 
come up the sky, and he seldom missed seeing 
the glorious prairie sunsets fade into the 
night. He knew all the calls of the birds in 
the woods from the peer^ peer, of the Ken- 
tucky cardinal to the cry of the Carolina par- 
oquet. In those days the tropical birds came 
as far north as Illinois, and many and many 
a time had Young John seen their flaming 
feathers in the trees. He knew all the habits 
of the badgers and raccoons, and he could 
whistle through a quill until the wild turkeys 
flocked all about him. 

136 



YOUNG JOHN GOES TO MARKET i^-f 

But of what real use was this kind of 
knowledge, questioned his father, Old John. 
There were trees to cut down (for, like most 




He Could Whistle Through a Quill Until the Wild Turkeys 

Flocked All About Him. 

pioneers, the Burchance family had built on 
the edge of a forest) and there were rails to 
be split. Young John was very good at tak- 
ing the grain to mill fifteen miles away — 
that gave him ample opportunity to gaze 



138 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

about him and learn more woodland ways. 
He was very poor at dropping corn and wheat, 
and a miserable hand at plowing. 

"Young John isn't much good," said the 
hard-working farmers, shaking their heads. 

Suddenly Young John woke up. The 
reason was this. A subscription school had 
been started among the pioneers in the thinly 
settled neighborhood, and to this school he 
wished to go. The building was only a log 
hut on the hill, with no floor and a fireplace 
that drew all the heat up the chimney in 
winter, but the schoolmaster who had been 
chosen loved wild things, too. He had tamed 
a bear cub once, and he had found and petted 
a motherless fawn which would have followed 
him everywhere if he had permitted it. 

"I'd like to go to school," said Young 
John one morning. He pushed back his 
cap and looked at his father out of pleasant 
blue eyes. 

"School!" scoffed his father. "What 
would you do at school? You'd be moonin' 



YOUNG JOHN GOES TO MARKET 139 

all day over a Grand-daddy-long-legs. Good 
hard work's the school you need." 

Young John pleasantly persisted, however, 
and the more he persisted, the more wrath- 
ful his father grew. 

Finally Old John pointed to two ancient 
geese waddling around the house. 

'TU give you a chance," he said, biting 
his words short. '^If you've got the brains 
to take those two old pieces of walkin' shoe 
leather to town and sell 'em for a good price, 
I'll let you go to school. Now let's hear no 
more from you." 

Then the boy was glad. He sang while he 
caught the two old comrades (they had come 
from the south in the covered wagon along 
with the usual two dogs and a tar-bucket) 
and swiftly wrung their necks. When he 
picked off the feathers, he whistled to see how 
aged the two bodies looked. 

"Never mind," said Young John cheer- 
fully, '* where there's a will there's a way, I've 
heard said. Now for market." 



140 



OLD SETTLER STORIES 



It was a beautiful morning In October. A 
few birds sang gloriously, and on the way to 
town he counted fifty empty birds' nests. 




A Covered Wa,2;on with the Usual Two Dogs and a 

1 ar-bucket. 

When he came to the tiny settlement, he 
found most of the countryside already there. 
There were even a few Indians who had come 
to exchange furs for firewater. One squaw 
had had too much firewater. As she sat 
stupidly on the ground. Young John ro- 
guishly placed a barrel over her. 

''Good chemokoman" (good white man), 
she said, "goodnatos" (good whisky). 

Young John went on, and presently he 
began to cry his wares. 



YOUNG JOHN GOES TO MARKET 141 

"Goose ! Goose ! Who wants to buy a fine 
fat goose ? Who'll buy, who'll buy, a fine fat 
goose ?" 

Many times he was stopped by women In 
llnsey-w^oolsey garments, and occasionally by 
a farmer In homespun blue jeans. Each 
would-be buyer turned away when he saw 
how old and tough were the wares Young 
John wished to sell. 

Nothing daunted, he cried again, "Geese, 
geese, who'll buy my geese .^" 

At last there came along a dear old lady. 
Her linsey-woolsey gown was as neat as a 
pin, and her black bonnet as stiff as a board. 
She prodded a goose with her forefinger. 

"I'll give you ten cents for this one," she 
said. 

"Can't you buy both of them.?" asked 
Young John. 

"No," said the little old lady very decid- 
edly. 

Now Young John had a smile like sun- 
shine and a pretty way with words. Both 



142 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

of these he used now. He lifted his cap 
and bowed. 

''My dear madam," he said, '*I can't sell 
one without the other. These poor old geese 
have been united in life in the most amicable 
relations for twenty years, and it would be 
sad to part them now." 

The dear old lady was so affected by this 
speech that she immediately bought both 
fowls, and Young John went home whistling 
with twenty cents, which was quite a fortune 
in those days. 

''Well," said his father in amazement, 
"you've more brains at a bargain than I 
thought. You may go to school." 

And Young John did. One day he took 
the good old lady a half dozen quails to pay 
for the ancient geese, and promised her many 
more. He killed rabbits for her, and squir- 
rels, and now and then he caught a wild 
turkey. In pioneer days it was necessary for 
every child to do his part, and Young John, 
who had hitherto been too soft-hearted to 



YOUNG JOHN GOES TO MARKET 143 

kill wild game, suddenly began to con- 
tribute his share of the family meat, as 
well as providing some for the surprised 
old lady. 

Young John attended the subscription 
school diligently. Every night he studied 
arithmetic with the schoolmaster, so that he 
might learn more than the other pupils. 
When he was a little older he gave a man a 
young colt as payment for the man's staying 
on the farm and doing Young John's work 
for him, while Young John went to school at 
a larger school ten miles away. From this 
he went to a seminary still farther away, and 
here he studied land surveying and naviga- 
tion. When his father gave him a surveyor's 
compass, there was no happier boy in the 
whole world. 

The little lady who had bought his ancient 
geese lived to see the bright-eyed lad one of 
the foremost surveyors in the wilderness, and 
she never regretted her purchase of the 
leathery fowls, since it was the means of 



144 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

helping a boy get an education. But what 
she did with her bargain she never told. No 
one knew but her old gray cat, and he only 
washed his face and looked wise when the 
subject was mentioned. 



THE SUDDEN FREEZE 

Did you ever make a wish and have It 
granted so suddenly that you were almost 
swept off your feet ? Then you will enjoy 
this story. It is the tale of little Benjamin 
Cox, who, on the afternoon of a winter day In 
the year 1836, wished that the creek would 
freeze over so that he might go skating. 

Benjamin lived an eighth of a mile from 
Money Creek, and two miles from the school. 
All of Benjy's brothers and sisters went to 
school, leaving the little boy to amuse him- 
self in the log house w^hlle his mother cooked 
pumpkin leather or spun with her wheel In 
the corner. 

'^Oh, how I wish that the creek would 

freeze!" cried Benjy again, for when the 

creek froze, his mother let him skate every 

afternoon, and then the winter day did not 

L 145 



146 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

• 

seem so long without the presence of his 
merry brothers and sisters. 

^'It won't to-day," said his mother, ''for 
it's too warm. Why don't you put on your 
fur coat and cap and go meet the children 
as they come from school.^" 

"Oh, I will, I will!" cried Benjy, and he 
took down his coat from the peg on the wall. 

It was about three o'clock when Benjy 
started. His fur coat was much too warm, 
so he took it off. He tied the sleeves around 
his neck so that he would not loose the gar- 
ment, and plodded happily on. The ground 
was covered with wet mud, thin from recent 
rain and thawing, but Benjy did not mind 
that. The more mud through which he 
splashed, the happier was he. He pursed 
up his red lips in a whistle, and he felt very 
grown-up and important. 

He must have loitered on the way, for they 
said that the roaring wind came up exactly 
at four o'clock, and at that time the little 
boy was still some distance from the school. 



THE SUDDEN FREEZE 147 

He noticed suddenly in the northwest very 
threatening clouds. Those higher in the sky 
were very dark, while those below were of a 
strange, white frosty appearance. 

"How queer ! " said Benjy aloud to a winter 
rabbit, who immediately went into his hole. 

Suddenly the air seemed to fill w^th count- 
less tiny particles of mist. At the same mo- 
ment the child thought he would freeze. The 
water began to turn to sleet, and the air grew 
colder and colder. 

Benjy passed, on the run, a little pond 
called Duck Pond. Long needles of ice were 
shooting across its surface in every direction. 
How queer it looked ! 

On and on Benjy raced. A little farther 
he saw ducks and geese imprisoned in the ice 
in a brook ; they had been caught while 
paddling. Near the door of the schoolhouse 
a wandering cow was held fast in the frozen 
slush in the same way. 

Benjy's little heart was by this time beat- 
ing fast with terror and with the swiftness of 



148 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

his flight. He sank exhausted to the ground 
just as the doors of the schoolhouse opened 
and the pupils came tumbHng out. 

Then what shouts of astonishment there 
were at the sight of small Benjy on the ground, 
and poor Bossy, her four feet held fast In the 
ice, bawling woefully. 

Benjy's big brother Oscar grasped the seri- 
ousness of the situation. Flinging Benjy 
on to his back, he snatched the hand of his 
youngest sister, and bade the children run 
home as fast as possible, never stopping a 
second. The schoolmaster, who had just 
come out, urged the same thing. 

The seven Cox children ran as they had 
never run before. Soon the mud froze to their 
shoes so that they could hardly stagger along. 
Now and then a child fell, but the others 
helped him up Immediately and half dragged, 
half carried him on. 

When the little famllv finally reached 
home, more dead than alive, Benjy was un- 
conscious with the cold. In the warm air of 



THE SUDDEN FREEZE 149 

the cabin he quickly revived, and with a big 
molasses cookie in each red hand, he proudly 
described the beginning of the unusual change 
in the weather. 

"I said I wished that the creek would 
freeze, didn't I, Mother?" he said. "Only 
I 'most froze, too!" 

The Sudden Freeze was talked of for vears 
and years after that eventful day ; even now 
you will find people who tell how their grand- 
fathers lived through It. Small animals were 
frozen in the mud, to die later, unless some 
pitying hand released them. Everywhere 
cows, like the poor Jersey by the school, were 
frozen fast, and had to be cut out before the 
evening milking. 

Chickens curled up and fell off the roost, 
and the hogs, to get warm, piled up on top 
of one another as high as they could climb. 
Manv of them smothered to death. 

In many places the water froze in ridges as 
it was blown that way by the wind, present- 
ing a strange sight to the early settlers. 



150 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

Mr. Cox had gone on an errand a mile 
away when the freeze began. When he came 
home he could scarcely get his overcoat off, 
so stiff was it frozen. When he did get it 
off, it stood alone on the floor. Mr. Cox 
had been driving white Sally when the 
change in the weather occurred. When he 
got back he found the harness was frozen 
fast to her, and he could not get it off for 
two days. 

The worst calamity of the freeze occurred 
in Central Illinois. A man and child were 
riding across the prairie, when, with a roar, 
the wind came up. Seeing that escape was 
impossible on horseback, the man dismounted, 
and with his knife disemboweled the animal. 
Then, with the child, he crawled into the 
warm cavity. The man was frozen to 
death, but the child lived and was later 
found by some farmers hurrying home to 
their families. 

Little Benjy never forgot his wish and the 
sudden answer to it, and when he was an old 



THE SUDDEN FREEZE 151 

man In the chimney corner he used to take 
an apple-cheeked grandchild on either knee 
and tell them of the ducks and geese who 
froze fast In the pond one strange winter day, 
so long ago. 



COMFORT'S WEDDING 

Once upon a time, a great many years ago, 
there lived in the western wilderness two 
young people so good and handsome and true 
that they were loved by their neighbors for 
a distance of one hundred miles. The young 
man's name was Severe Stringfield, and the 
young woman's name was Comfort Rhodes. 
Now Severe's disposition did not suit his 
name, as you may already have guessed, for 
he was a bright, smiling youth, always ready 
to do any one a favor. Comfort's name did 
suit her, for a better maid of eighteen never 
washed the faces of her little brothers and 
sisters, combed their hair, and taught them 
to ''make their manners." 

When Comfort's mother heard that Com- 
fort and Severe were to be married, she im- 
mediately put her homespun apron to her 

T52 



COAIFORT'S WEDDING 153 

eyes and wept. Then she withdrew it and 
began to plan the wedding feast and the 
wedding gown. 

"You must be married in blue," she said, 
''for that's your color; and you must wear 
your grandmother's lace shawl." 

''And we will have a wedding supper," 
boomed Comfort's father. Mr. Rhodes was 
a giant of a man with grizzled hair and black 
eves under white brows. 

Comfort smiled and agreed to everything, 
for she was very happy. The greater part of 
every day now she sat in the corner and 
merrily turned her spinning wheel, for down 
in Pone Hollow Severe was building a small 
new cabin. No linen could be too carefully 
spun for that cabin. 

The wedding was set for the first of May. 
All spring Severe had been plowing his 
little patch of ground in Pone Hollow by 
moonlight, because of the green-headed flies. 
These insects were a great trouble to the early 
settlers, for thev were evervwhere, and if the 



154 OLl^ SETTLER STORIES 

young horses and cows were exposed to them, 
they were often stung to death. Hence men 
plowed and planted and even traveled by the 
light of the moon. 

A neighbor woman, Drusilla Harvey, rode 
fifty miles across the prairie to help make the 
wedding dress. She was a thin woman with 
a sharp tongue and a twitching thumb, but 
she could sew better than any one, Comfort 
thought. 

At last the wedding day came, seemingly 
a perfect day in May. The wild crab apple 
blooms lay like a pink, fragrant blanket on all 
the little hills, and in the redbud trees the 
bees hummed and hummed. The redbirds 
whistled down in the valley, and all the father 
thrushes in the country warbled while their 
mates sat on nests cunningly hid in the wild 
rosebushes, waiting for their babies to come. 

Then, about nine o'clock, there came over 
a cloud from the northeast. It was followed 
by another, then another. In a half hour 
the rain was falling fast, and pretty Comfort 



COMFORTS Wedding 155 

stood in the open door of the cabin, gazing 
sadly out at the streaming landscape. 

"There, don't you mind," said her mother. 
"A little rain won't keep anybody away. 
The men'll be glad to stop their planting. I 
reckon everybod)"'ll be here." 

There were three seasons for the pioneers 
of that time : winter, spring, and fall. In 
the winter they hunted wolves and deer ; in 
the spring they plowed the rich black soil 
and planted oats, corn, and a little wheat ; in 
the fall they drove to Chicago (200 miles) to 
sell their oats at twelve and one half cents a 
bushel. 

"I'm not crying for that," said Comfort. 
"It's the river I'm afraid of. You know 
Omey Only said yesterday that it's been rain- 
ing hard up north for a week. All the creeks 
up there are out of their banks. Severe said 
vesterdav that the river had risen a foot. 
And then wx hadn't had a drop of rain. 
What will It be by night t I'm afraid we 
can't go h-home to-nis^ht." 



156 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

Severe's cabin lay a half mile from the 
Rhodes cabin, on the other side of the 
river. There was not a bridge within fifty 
miles ; you forded the muddy w^aters on 
horseback, or else, if you were on foot, 
you crossed gingerly on the trunk of a great 
fallen oak. 

"The water was up to the log yesterday," 
said poor Comfort. 

"Never mind; I reckon Severe can ford 
the river on old Jinny, if the worst comes to 
the worst. Now you'd better help me with 
those pies." 

The hour of the wedding had been set for 
three o'clock in the afternoon, so that the 
guests (there were to be twenty in all) might 
arrive in plenty of time. Some of them lived 
thirty miles away. Then would come the 
marriage feast. The guests who lived only 
a short distance away, ten or fifteen miles, 
would return that night ; the rest would be 
disposed of somehow in the Rhodes cabin. 
Luckily it had a loft. 



COMFORT'S WEDDING 157 

By one o'clock the guests had arrived. 
First came the Pancake familv, with five 
little Pancakes of varying degrees of round- 
ness and thickness. The children were all 
so jolly and healthy looking as they crawled 
out of the covered wagon and scampered into 
the house, that both Comfort and her mother 
kissed everv rain-wet cheek. The Pancake 
baby was so joyful over being allowed to come 
to a wedding at such a tender age that he 
crowed until he doubled up and hung motion- 
less over Comfort's arm. 

Next came the two Stringfields, Severe's 
father and mother. They were simple, kindly 
people in rough homespun. They greeted 
Comfort happily, for they felt that their son 
was getting a good wife. 

After that there was a thin trickle of guests 
for over an hour. Old Granny Sharks, who 
was rheumatic and very ill-tempered, had in- 
sisted on coming, in spite of the rain. She 
was in a pet by the time she was put down 
on the hearth, still glued to her rush-bottomed 



158 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

chair, from which she had refused to be 
separated. 

^'Them a-tryin' to mek me stay to hum!" 
she sniffed to Comfort. "I told 'em I was 
comin' to see you married if I had to swim ! 
And I be comin', I be!" 

She glared at Comfort and repeated vio- 
lently, ^'I be!" 

Finally Granny took out from her pocket 
her corncob pipe and began to smoke. Grad- 
ually her anger melted, and by the time Com- 
fort was dressed in her bridal finery. Granny 
was fast asleep, her chin dropped on her 
bosom. 

When it was three o'clock, Comfort began 
to dress. Her gown was of blue and white 
calico. There were four widths to the skirt, 
the two front ones being gored. The waist 
was very short, and fastened behind with a 
draw string. The sleeves were immense, ta- 
pering from the shoulder to the wrist. 
"Sheep-shanks' sleeves," they called them. 
You will smile when I tell you that they were 



COMFORTS WEDDING 159 

thickly padded with feathers to make them 
keep their shape. 

No big sleeves and no queerly hanging 
skirt could dim the rosy beauty of Comfort's 
face, however. She was well satisfied with 
her new calico — didn't it cost forty cents a 
yard ^ And when she threw about her plump 
white shoulders the shawl which had come 
from England, there was not a prettier sight 
in the whole world. 

But the bridegroom — where was he } 
When the rain had started, he was in the 
new cabin, putting up a shelf for Comfort's 
few precious pewter dishes. As the drops 
came faster and faster, until, in fact, the very 
heavens seemed to pour down upon the earth, 
he decided to wait there until after the deluge 
passed. As the hours went on, the rain came 
faster, if possible. There was plenty to eat 
in the house, for he had furnished it well for 
his young bride, but Severe would not eat. 
He wished to break bread for the first time 
in the new home with Comfort. 



i6o OLD SETTLER STORIES 

Finally, when it drew near to three o'clock, 
he became alarmed. He had intended to 
dress here ; he had brought his wedding 
clothes — new butternut jeans and a pleated 
shirt. Such finery would be ruined in five 
minutes in such a rain. 

Then a bright idea came to him. He 
snatched up a buckskin meal sack and thrust 
the garments into it. Tying the mouth of 
the bag tightly with a bit of buckskin string, 
he gave one last glance at the cozy cabin, and 
then walked out into the downpour. 

It was an anxious bride who greeted him 
ten minutes later, as he stood dripping on the 
Rhodes threshold. He answered the banter 
of the guests smilingly, and then looked 
soberly at pretty Comfort. 

^'Comfort," he said, '^I hadn't calklated 
on comin' like a frog the first time I married 
you. But I've got all my glory in this meal- 
bag. I reckon I'd better crawl into the loft 
and put it on. And then if there's any 
eatin', I move we eat first and be married 



COMFORT'S WEDDING i6i 

afterwards. I'll tell you why. The river's 
rose awful, and I know Old Liveforever's 
goin' to have a hard time gettin' here." 

Comfort nodded gravely. "It seems as 
if everything's just trying to spoil my wed- 
ding day," she said, with tears in her eyes. 
"The Blaines haven't come — on account of 
the high water, I suppose — nor the Joneses, 
nor the Wheelers." 

''All the more for us to eat, then," cried 
Severe cheerfully, as he crawled into the loft. 

The minister who w^as to marry them was 
to come from the settlement thirty miles 
away. He was called Old Liveforever, be- 
cause of his peculiar beliefs. Man, he said, 
was not meant to die. He himself never 
meant to die. Old Liveforever had made 
preaching engagements for five hundred years 
ahead. 

When Severe descended from the loft, he 
took his place at Comfort's side, and good Mrs. 
Rhodes, aided by a very fat neighbor who 
wheezed as she walked, waited on the quests. 

M 



i62 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

Such slices of bear bacon as were eaten — 
such haunches of venison ! What a number 
of pies disappeared, and what quarts of 
coffee made from roasted wheat ! And what 
happiness there was in the log house, even 
though the rain poured outside and the 
minister was many watery miles away ! 

Just about dark, Mr. Rhodes suddenly 
lifted his hand for silence. 

''I hear some one shouting," he said. 

Sure enough, there came a long call. 
'^Severe! Severe Stringfield!" 

"It's the minister," cried Severe joyfully, 
and ran to the door. The rain had ceased at 
last. 

"I'll run down to the river and meet him," 
said Mr. Rhodes, and off he splashed. 

A little later he came back with a sober 
face. 

"He can't get across," he said. "The 
water's turrible high, and his horse won't 
swim it. He says for you to come down to 
the bank and he'll marry you anyway." 



COMFORT'S WEDDING 163 

Severe turned to look at Comfort. 

^'I suppose that we might as well," she 
said. 

Then what a hurrying to and fro there was 
in that little backwoods cabin ! Granny had 
come to life again, and she gave more shrill 
commands in one minute than two people could 
possibly fulfill in a half hour. Mrs. String- 
field looked down the path to the river ; then 
she turned doubtfully to Comfort's mother. 

''I'm thinking," she said, ''that if we see 
our children married, we'll have to wade." 

And that is exactlv what thev had to do. 

Soon there rode forth from the little house, 
on old Jinny, the bridegroom and his bride. 
Comfort clung lightly to the stalwart form 
of Severe, and she wore around her shoulders 
the delicate web of the white shawl. As the 
horse paused for a moment in the light which 
streamed out from the open doorway, Mrs. 
Stringfield thought that she had never seen 
a lovelier sight than the face behind that of 
her boy. The dampness had made little 



i64 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

straying ringlets around the edge of the 
straw bonnet, and on the girl's breast some 
one had pinned a fragrant cluster of wild 
crab apple blossoms. Then old Jinny, of her 
own accord, started with important steps 
down to the river. After her came the wed- 
ding guests, shrieking and laughing as they 
waded barefooted through the mud and 
water. Ruin their shoes, even for a w^edding ? 
Never ! When I tell you that the best im- 
ported calfskin boots of those days cost five 
hundred dollars, you will not wonder that 
these thrifty people tried to save their sturdy 
foot covering. 

Presently all reached the shore of the river. 
The tall form of the parson could barely be 
made out as he sat on his great horse under 
the big willow^ on the opposite bank. 

"I can't see you," he called. 

Then by dint of much coaxing, he forced 
his horse out into the yellow water, until It 
came up to Old Dobbin's flanks. And then 
and there, by the light of a flickering pine 



COMFORT'S WEDDING 165 

torch, with the river hurrying by and the 
whippoorwills calling in the timber, Severe 
and Comfort were married. Severe had no 
money, but he promised to pay his fee in 
maple sugar the following spring. 

It was here that old Jinny surprised every- 
body. Whatever made her do so, no one 
ever knew, but she calmly walked out into 
the river and was stemming the current before 
Severe could tighten the reins. She swam 
steadily through the water and finall}" came 
out on the opposite bank, where she stopped 
by Dobbin. 

How the wedding guests shouted and 
laughed ! And how pleased was Severe ! 
How concerned Comfort was over her be- 
draggled gown ! 

In pioneer days, however, few tears were 
shed over the unexpected and unpleasant, 
and In a few moments the young people were 
smiling to think how much sooner they had 
come home than they had expected. They 
waved a good-by, which no one saw, to the 



i66 _ OLD SETTLER STORIES 

little group with the torch, and shouted to 
them a last message for Granny, who had 
been left in the cabin. 

Then, with the preacher, they rode slowly 
up the bank and through the woods to their 
own little cabin with the bed, the blue chest 
used as a table, the settle, and the shelf for 
the precious pewter. This was home. 



LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 

In March of the year 1830, the year be- 
fore the memorable "big snow," Thomas 
Lincoln, an Indiana squatter, started West 
with his family. There were with him his 
wife, two daughters and their husbands, and 
a long, lanky youth of twenty-one, his son 
Abraham. Although winter was not yet 
over, there was a hint of spring in the air, 
and the boy, feeling it, urged forward his 
slow ox team, while his eyes hopefully sought 
the prairie stretching endlessly to the west. 
Behind him followed his father, driving the 
other wagon, which was pulled by oxen even 
slower. The spring thaw had begun, and 
the thick mud in places came to the axles of 
the heavy movers' wagons. 

Here and there in the leafless trees the boy 
saw a bluebird or a tufted titmouse, and once 

167 



1 68 



OLD SETTLER STORIES 



a Kentucky cardinal called cheerily to him 
from the top of a dead oak. He greeted it 
with a slow wave of his long arm as he spied 
it, a scarlet spot on the topmost branch. 




Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. 

Between the sucking sounds made by the 
oxen's feet as they plunged in and out of the 
heavy black mire, he heard the cawing of 
crows and the scream of the bluejays, and 
once the clear call of a quail. 

To help pass the time, for the wagons trav- 



LINCOLN IN IMACON COUNTY 169 

eled more and more slowly, he tried to name 
the trees he passed. He found that he knew 
few of them except the burr oaks, the wal- 
nuts and hickories, the elms and the willow^s. 
. "Haw!" he called suddenly to the oxen, 
who had swerved too far to the right, and 
were about to plunge the wagon into a ditch 
full of stagnant water. 

John Hanks, who was seven years older 
than Abraham Lincoln, and who had bought 
a piece of land next the Lincoln farm in 
Indiana, had improved it, returning then to 
Kentucky, whence both families had come. 
In 1828 he had decided to move to Illinois, and- 
on his way to the new home he had stopped 
for a while with the Lincolns in Indiana. 

''Write to us," said Thomas Lincoln at 
parting, ''and tell us what you think of the 
new country. If it's better than Indiana, 
we'll go too." 

Mr. Hanks had shaken hands, clucked to 
his oxen, and started away into the west. 
The bov Abraham had watched him until 



I70 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

the wagon was only a white blur in the 
distance. 

*'I like this place," wrote back Mr. Hanks 
to his friends. "It's far better than your 
Indiana soil. You'd better come." 

Hence Thomas Lincoln had started. 

On the morning of the fifteenth day, after 
traveling two hundred miles, the Lincolns 
reached Macon County, Illinois. 

"We will stop here," said the young Lin- 
coln's father. "Let us find a good place for 
m. 

The place was soon found. It lay on the 
north side of the little Sangamon River. 
Abraham was glad to climb down from the 
wagon when they reached it, for he was stiff 
from the long trip. 

Mr. Hanks soon came to greet his friends. 

"When I first came," he said, "I intended 
to locate here on the north bank of the river, 
but I didn't have horses enough to break the 
prairie, and so I abandoned the place and 
went on four miles farther to Hickory Point, 



LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 171 

I cut that pile of logs for my house, and you 
may have them for your cabin, if you like 
the country and want to stay." 

'' I do," responded Thomas Lincoln. "Abe, 
you take a yoke of oxen and drag those logs 
over to. the big oak yonder." 

The boy did so at once, working eagerly. 

Soon work was begun on the cabin. It 
was made of hewed timber, chinked with 
moss and clay. It had a puncheon floor 
(split logs with the smooth side up), puncheon 
doors, and a big fireplace. Over this the 
women hung, planning things they would 
cook. Fifteen days of hard traveling by 
wagon had made them eager for a house, 
however poor. The gable ends of the house 
were boarded up with planks ''rived" of oak 
by Abraham. 

The work went very slowly, for the only 
tools Thomas Lincoln had were a common 
ax, a hand saw, and a drawer knife. He 
had brought a few nails from Indiana, and 
these were unbelievably precious. 



172 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

After the cabin was completed, the men 
put up a smokehouse and a stable. Then 
the boy helped split enough rails to fence a 
ten-acre lot, and he built the fence himself. 
Later, when the spring really came, w^ith the 
ox teams he broke the ground and planted 
corn. For this he waited "until the hickory 
leaves were as big as squirrel ears." As he 
dropped the corn, something in the singing 
spring made his own blood leap ; something 
in the vast reach and promise of the prairies 
called to him, and, as to Dick Whittington, 
there came to the uncouth lad on the edge of 
the wilderness, the desire to go forth and seek 
his own fortune. 

"Father," he said, one evening after he had 
finished plowing, hung up his 'coon skin 
cap, and drunk from the hollow gourd, 
"you're pretty well started here now. Fm 
going to strike out for myself." 

He did not leave that region immediately, 
but worked out among farmers, earning 
barely enough to buy his clothes. Some 



LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 173 

people say he broke fifty acres of prairie with 
four yoke of oxen that year, and that he 
spent most of the winter splitting rails. 

One summer he worked as ''hired man" 
for a Mr. Brown, and put in a crop of corn. 
Every spare moment he could get he devoted 
to reading. Years later, Mrs. Brown told 
this anecdote. 

"Mr. Lincoln worked for my old man 
thirty-four year ago, and put in a crap of 
corn. The next winter he druv with my old 
man all the way to town and sold it for two 
dollars and a half a bushel. 

''Then there weren't any taverns like there 
is now, and when you were traveling you had 
to stop wherever they'd take you In. Well, 
once one summer evenin' a right peart-lookin' 
man rid up to our house and asked If he could 
have lodgin' for the night. 'Well,' said my 
old man, 'I reckon we can feed your critter 
all right, and I reckon we can feed you, only 
you'll have to sleep with the hired man.' The 
stranger, who was right smart-lookin', kind o' 



174 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

hung back at that. 'Where is he?' he sez. 
'You come see,' sez my old man. And he 
took him where Mr. Lincoln was layin' in 
the shade of the house, readin' a book. 
'There,' sez my old man, 'there he is.' The 
stranger looked at him hard. 'Well, I reckon 
he'll do,' he sez. He didn't know he was 
sleepin' w^ith the future president of the 
United States." 

You must remember that in those da3^s 
there were no libraries in the backwoods. 
Books were few and very precious. Boys 
walked twenty-five or thirty miles to borrow 
a volume of Scott, and in many homes the 
almanac furnished the only literature, except 
as now and then a package came wTapped in 
a precious year-old newspaper. Lincoln's 
friends were glad to lend him the books he 
craved, and as soon as the farm work was 
over in winter, the young man threw himself 
down on the hearth and read by the bright 
firelight, while the good housewife mixed 
cracklings, fresh from the newly rendered 



LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 175 

lard, with meal and water to bake the crisp, 
tender corn pone. Corn pone and sweet 
milk furnished a supper fit for a king. 

Lincoln did not spend all of his spare mo- 
ments In reading, however. Nor was he 
without friends. He had several good friends, 
and one of the closest about this time was 
James Sanders, who was famed throughout 
the county for his strength. Once he threw 
Abraham Lincoln In a wrestling match after 
Lincoln had thrown the town bully. 

At the wedding of one Uncle Joe Stevens, 
the men as usual Indulged in feats of strength. 
Sanders picked up two pieces of lead, each 
seventy-five pounds in weight, lifted them 
as high as his shoulders, and made them 
touch In front. This man, who had come 
from South Carolina with a wife, five children, 
four horses, and six and one fourth cents, was 
Lincoln's constant companion for some time. 
They frequently went to house raisings and 
husking bees together. 

In pioneer times the husking bee was a 



176 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

great event. Many a time young Lincoln 
and his brawny friend, both clad in hunting 
shirt and deerskin trousers, went to a shuck- 
ing together. Then corn was never husked 
in the field as it is to-day. The crops were 
hauled home unhusked, and often thrown 
down beside the corncribs, so that the ears, 
when husked, could be thrown into the crib. 

Picture for yourself Abraham and James, 
on a November afternoon, watching while 
the great pile of unshucked corn was divided 
into two equal parts by some zealous soul. 
This was done by laying rails across the 
middle of the pile. Next two of the swiftest 
huskers were chosen as captains for the con- 
test. These two men now chose sides, pick- 
ing out the women as well as the men to help 
them. 

What fun there was when the shucking 
began ! What a hubbub arose ! What ex- 
citement when a youth found a red ear of 
corn and looked about for a girl, according 
to custom, to kiss ! 



LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 177 

Supper was usually served before dark. 
Before the meal was really ended oftentimes, 
the young people arose and demanded that 
the room be cleared for the dance, which 
always followed the husking. The dishes 
were merrily snatched off the table, and the 
chairs put outside the house, though the older 
people scolded vigorously. The fiddler, who 
was often a very important and pompous 
person, tuned his fiddle and broke into the 
strain of Old Da?i Tucker, 

"Q\d Dan Tucker came to town. 
Saluted the ladies all around ; 
First to the right and then to the left 
And then to the one that you love best." 

It is said that Lincoln was a shy youth and 
enjoyed looking on at such festivities better 
than taking part in them. He was more at 
home in the wrestling matches with which 
the dances occasionally broke up. 

One of the early residents of Macon County, 
a Mrs. Woods, often told this tale of Lin- 



N 



178 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

coin's shyness. It happened In the days 
"when harvesters went from house to house 
to cut the grain. To one of these harvesting 
gangs, composed of stalwart young men, Lin- 
coln belonged. He was tall and lanky for 
his age, with his blue jeans sleeves and 
trouser legs so short that his arms and feet 
seemed very large and awkward. To his 
companions, therefore, he was a constant 
subject of mirth. 

One day the harvesting gang went to the 
home of Mrs. Woods' sister. Lincoln by this 
time had become so sensitive that he refused 
to eat with the other harvesters when noon 
came, but ate instead under the apple tree 
in the back yard. 

On the third day some one persuaded him 
to go into the house when dinner was ready. 
He sat on a puncheon stool at the end of a 
puncheon table. In those days, harvest time 
was the signal for all the pretty young girls 
of the countryside to rall}^ to the home of the 
people whose grain was being cut. These 



LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 179 

girls did the cooking and waited upon the 
table. Just as one of these pretty maids 
stopped beside young Lincoln with a cup of 
hot coffee in her hand, his companions again 
began to jeer good-naturedly at his ungainly 
height. The youth gave a quick gesture of 
embarrassment, knocking the cup from the 
girl's hand, and sending the scalding coffee 
over himself. After that, all through the 
harvesting season, he refused to eat with the 
others, and patiently took his meals outdoors, 
a lonely, pathetic figure. 

Here is an anecdote of Lincoln's shrewd- 
ness, often related in Decatur. A long time 
ago, at the Old Fair Grounds in that city, 
an enterprising backwoodsman displayed a 
quarrelsome badger in a barrel. 

"Twenty-five cents," he called,- *' twenty- 
five cents to let your dog get the badger out 
of the barrel ! Twenty-five cents if you're 
successful !" 

At that time every man had at least two 
of three old hounds following him, and one 



i8o OLD SETTLER STORIES 

by one the owners stepped up and entered 
each hound for the event. Every dog re- 
treated before the snarling badger and re- 
fused to fight. 

On the outskirts of the crowd stood Abra- 
ham Lincoln, a gaunt, amused spectator. He 
turned to a friend, at whose feet a dog lay 
curled in fear. 

'Til furnish the quarter," said Lincoln, 
''if you'll enter your dog. If he wins the 
ten dollars, we'll split it." 

''Oh, he won't fight," said the owner. "He 
can't bring it out." 

"Yes, he can," responded Lincoln with a 
slow smile. "I can get that dog to bring the. 
critter out. Let's try. I'll succeed." 

"You'll lose your money. Keep your 
quarter, Abe." 

Lincoln insisted, however. He went up to 
the owner of the badger and explained the 
contract to him and to the crowd which had 
gathered. He handed the man a quarter. 

Then he turned around, quickly grasped 



LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY i8i 

the crouching dog by the skin over his hips, 
and flung him, tail first, into the barreL In 
a second the dog rushed out, unhurt but 
howling, with the badger on his back ! 

The spectators broke into laughter and 
handclapping. 

"No fair!" called the owner of the animal. 
"That's no fair ! The dog had to go in after 
the badger and bring it out!" 

"On the contrary," said Lincoln with a 
good-natured smile, "I only contracted to 
bring the badger out. The ten dollars is 
mine." 

And amid the jibes of the crowd the owner 
of the animal had to hand over the money. 

Before he left ALacon County, Lincoln used 
occasionally to go see Anne Warnicke, the 
daughter of Major Warnicke, who was at 
that time sheriff of Macon Countv. One 
winter day he was on his way to pay his re- 
spects to her. He had to cross the Sangamon 
River at a point about two miles from his 
own home. The river was frozen, and the 



1 82 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

ice apparently safe, but when the young man 
reached the middle of the stream, the ice. 
broke, and he had to struggle hard to reach " 
a firm footing. He was wet to the knees, but 
he plunged doggedly ahead. The water froze 
on his clothes, and he felt very cold. He 
stumbled along the remaining five miles to 
the Warnicke house. When he reached it, 
his feet were frozen. Lincoln would have 
made light of the matter, but the Warnickes 
would not let him. They promptly put him 
to bed, and there he stayed tw^o weeks. 

It was while taking this enforced vacation 
that he eagerly read through the Major's 
library. This was not large, as it consisted 
mainly of The Revised Statutes of the State of 
Illinois. Over this book, as if it had been the 
most absorbing story ever written, Lincoln 
pored hour after hour. It was then that 
he definitely decided to become a lawyer. 

The years went on, and Abraham did be- 
come a lawyer, as he had wished. The old 
log court house, where he argued his first 



LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 183 

case, still stands In Decatur, lovingly cher- 
ished and protected by the Daughters of the 
American Revolution. The square on which 
it once stood still bears Lincoln's name. 

A story is told of one of Lincoln's first 
cases. The earnest 3^oung lawyer was de- 
fending a woodchopper, with whom he was 
acquainted, soon after his admission to the 
bar. He cleared the woodchopper, and the 
man gave him as a fee fifty cents, which was 
all he had. 

"I will pay you later on," he said thank- 
fully. 

"No, this is enough," answered Lincoln. 
"You have paid your bill." 

The story leaked out that Abraham had 
accepted a fee of fifty cents as attorney. 

"This w^ill never do," thought the other 
lawyers in the tow^n, and they all w^aited 
upon Lincoln in a body. He was called to 
account. Was it true that he had ac- 
cepted such a ridiculously low fee ? Was It 
a fact ? 



i84 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

*'It is true," said Lincoln. 

*'This will never do. It is a disgrace to 
the profession. It is very unprofessional to 
accept such a penurious fee. We are de- 
graded." 

Lincoln studied a bit. 

"Gentlemen, is it unprofessional to accept 
a fifty cent fee .^" 

"It certainly is." 

"Well, gentlemen, I took from the man 
every cent he had in the world. If there is 
anything unprofessional about that, it's plain 
where it comes in." 

The years went on, and in i860 Lincoln 
was mentioned as a candidate for the presi- 
dency, but few people paid any attention to 
this. The State Convention was to be held 
in Decatur in May — but where ? There 
was no room big enough to hold all the dele- 
gates, much less the crowd of people who 
were to be guests. 

Finally the problem was solved. Although 
lumber vards in Decatur were few then, and 



LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 



185 



although lumber was very hard to rent, 
enough was secured to build, on some vacant 
lots near the center of town, a rude structure. 
The roof was flat and sloped south with the 
surface of the ground. Richard Oglesby se- 




This Queer Structure was Named "The Wigwam 



» 



cured a tent fly from a circus company. 
''This was attached to the wooden part," 
says the Decatur Herald, "and stretched flat 
across to near the east building, supported 
by posts and stringers. It was roped down 
at the ends and sides." 

This queer structure was named "The 
Wigwam," and as The Wigwam it has gone 
down In historv. 



i86 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

'^To Oglesby, of Decatur," says Mrs. Jane 
Martin Johns in her Personal Recollections of 
Early Decatur, ^'must be conceded the honor 
of creating the candidacy of Abraham Lincoln 
for the presidency of the United States. . . . 
One day he met John Hanks who, he knew, 
had worked with Lincoln on a farm vears and 
years before, and asked him 'what kind of 
work Abe used to be good at.' 

'' ' Well, not much of any kind but dream- 
ing,' was Hanks' reply, 'but he did help me 
split a lot of rails w^hen we made the clearing 
twelve miles west of here.' 

"The rest of the story I will give as It was 
related to J. McCan Davis, clerk of the 
Supreme Court of Illinois, by Mr. Oglesby 
himself. 

'''John,' said I, 'did you split rails down 
there with Old Abe V 

" ' Yes ; every day,' he replied. 

"'Do you suppose you could find any of 
them now ? ' 

"'Yes,' he said, 'the last time I was down 



LINCOLN IN iMACON COUNTY 187 




Lincoln Splitting Rails. 



1 88 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

there, ten years ago, there were plenty of 
them left.' 

*''What are you going to do to-morrow?' 

"'Nothm?.' 

" 'Then,' said I, 'come around and get In my 
buggy and we will drive down there.' 

" So the next day we drove down to the old 
clearing. We turned in by the timber and 
John said, 'Dick, if I don't find any black 
walnut rails, nor any honey-locust rails, I 
won't claim it's the fence Abe and I built.' 

''Presently John said, 'There's the fence.' 

"'But look at those great trees,' said L 

" 'Certainly,' he answered. 'They have all 
grown up since.' 

"John got out and I stayed in the buggy. 
John kneeled down and commenced chipping 
the rails of the fence with an old penknife. 
Soon he came back with black walnut shavings 
and honey-locust shavings. 

" 'There they are,' said he, triumphantly 
holding out the shavings. 'They are the 
identical rails we made.' 



1 



LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 189 

"Then I got out and made an examination 
of the fence. There were many black wahiut 
and honey-locust rails. 

"'John,' said I, 'where did you cut these 
rails ^ ' 

"'I can take you to the stumps,' he 
answered. 

"'We will go down there,' said L 

"We drove about one hundred yards. 

"'Now,' said he, 'look! There's a black 
walnut stump ; there's another — another — 
another. Here's where we cut the trees down 
and split the rails. Then we got a horse and 
wagon, hauled them in, and built the fence 
and the cabin.' 

" We took two of the rails and tied them 
under the hind-axle tree of my new buggy, 
and started for town. People would occa- 
sionally pass and think something was broken. 
We let them think so, for we didn't wish to 
tell anybody just what we were doing. We 
kept right on until wc got to my barn. There 
we hid the rails until the day of the convention. 



I90 OLD SETTLER STORIES 

'' Before the convention met, I talked with 
several JRepublicans about my plan, and we 
fixed it up that old John Hanks should take 
the rails into the convention. We made a 
banner and attached it to a board across the 
top of the rails, with the inscription : 

" ^Abraham Lincoln, The Railsplitter Can- 
didate for President in i860. Two rails from 
a lot of 3,000 made in 1830 by John Hanks 
and Abe Lincoln.' 

"After the convention got under way, I 
arose and announced that an old Democrat 
desired to make a contribution to the conven- 
tion. The proceedings stopped, and all was 
expectancy and excitement. Then in walked 
old John with the banner on the rails. 

" From that time the rails were ever pres- 
ent in the campaign. 

"The Seward boom was dead. ^Dick' 
Oglesby and old John Hanks and two fence 
rails had killed it. 

" John M. Palmer was soon on his feet Avith 
a resolution declaring that 'Abraham Lin- 



LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 191 

coin is the first choice of the Republican party 
of Illinois for the presidency,' and instruct- 
ing 'the delegates to the Chicago convention 
to use all honorable means to secure the nomi- 
nation and to cast the vote of the state as a 
unit for him.' ... 

''The enthusiasm with which this rail- 
framed banner was received by the convention 
is unrivaled in history, unless we except the 
reception of Mr. Lincoln's nomination in 
Chicago a few weeks later. The roof was 
literally cheered off the building, hats and 
books and canes and papers were tossed aloft, 
as men jumped and screamed and howled, 
until part of the awning over the platform 
fell on their heads. When the enthusiasm 
finally subsided, the Wigwam was almost a 
wreck. . . . 

'' It was a complete surprise to Mr. Lincoln. 
Mr. Lowber Burrows, who was present, thus 
described the scene. 

" ' Yes, I was present when Johnny Hanks 
carried that banner into the convention, and 



192 



OLD SETTLER STORIES 



the whole crowd went wild. The members 
were simply frantic with surprise and delight. 
Lincoln was wildly called for. You know, 
he could not be found when they wanted him. 
A committee hunted around and finally found 
him asleep in the back room of his friend 




ion- 

J 

Wigwam in Chicago where Lincoln was Nominated for 

President 

Jim Peake's jewelry store. Lincoln had wan- 
dered into the store, seeking for a few min- 
utes' rest and quiet, and, seeing the couch, 
threw himself upon it and soon fell asleep. 
" ' He was roused and rushed through a back 



LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY 193 

entrance to the platform -of the convention. 
He knew nothing of the plot, and when con- 
fronted with the banner, stood for a few 
moments simply dazed with astonishment. 
When told that these were rails he had split, 
he said: "Gentlemen, John and I did split 
some rails down there, and if these are not 
the identical rails we certainly made some 
quite as good." '" 

After that his days were not long in Macon 
County. He had been called by the world, 
and he went forth to do the work of the 
world, one of the truest, finest gentlemen our 
country has ever known. 



Printed in the United States of America. 
O 



The Everychild's Series is a growing library of supple- 
mentary reading. The purpose of this series is to broaden 
the child's growing interest in geography, history, nature 
study, biography, and the like, and to encourage him to seek 
for himself entertainment and information in the broader 
field of life and literature. The scope of the series covers 
plays, games, fairy tales, fables, myths, folklore, nature 
study, geography, useful arts, industries, biography, history, 
government, public service, fine arts, and literature. From 
this library the child may read about the exploits of Old 
World heroes and conquerors, about the thrilling adven- 
tures of early explorers and discoverers, and about the 
brave deeds of American pioneers and patriots. Real and 
fanciful stories of nature and of animal life, myths and 
legends of ancient Greece, ballads and folklore of the 
Middle Ages, and tales of our grandmother's day appeal to 
the child's imagination and lay a foundation for further 
study and reading. The content of each book is carefully 
graded to correspond to the different stages of the child's 
development. The simple, vigorous style of each book 
shows that sympathetic understanding of the child's mind 
which characterizes the most charming writers of stories 
for children. This series seeks to instruct the child with 
simplicity and wholesomeness, to heighten his finer appre- 
ciation, and to give him, along with keen enjoyment, the 
things of life that are interesting and valuable. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
ATLANTA BOSTON. CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO 



EVERYCHILD'S SERIES 



Each 



Cloth 



Illustrated 



ibmo 



40 cents 



ALSHOUSE: 

ANDERSON: 
BEMISTER: 

BENDER: 

BIRD and 
STARLING: 

CALHOUN: 
CAI,HOUN: 

DICKSON: 

DICKSON: 

DUNN: 

FARMER: 

GARDNER: 



Heroes of the Nation. For Intermediate and Grammar 

Grades. 
Tales of the heroes of many lands. 

Stories of the Golden Age. For Intermediate Grades. 
Legends of the Age of Pericles. 

Indian Legends. For Intermediate Grades. 
The life and the traits of character of the American 
Indian. 

Great Opera Stories. For Intermediate Grades. 
Famous operas told in a simple charming way. 

Historical Plays for Children. For Intermediate Grades. 
Dramatized stories of historical characters. 

Book of Brave Adventures. For Intermediate Grades. 
The brave adventures of heroes of many lands. 

When Great Folks Were Little Folks. For Grammar 
Grades. 

Plain little boys and girls who grew up and accom- 
plished great things. 

Pioneers and Patriots in American History. For 

Intermediate Grades. 
Our forefathers in the days of the Revolution. 

Camp and Trail in Early American History. For 

Intermediate Grades. 
The early discoverers and explorers of our country. 

What Shall We Play? For Primary and Intermediate 

Grades. 
Dramatizations of a variety of well-known children stories. 

Boy and Girl Heroes. For Intermediate Grades. 
Interesting incidents in the childhood of well-known 
heroes. 

Nature Stories. For Primary Grades. 

The beauty and usefulness of insects, animals, and 

flowers told in a way that appeals to the imagination 

of a child. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
ATLANTA BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO 



EVERYCHILD'S SERIES — Continued 



HALLOCK : In Those Days. For Intermediate Grades. 

Really true stories of Grandmother's Day. 

HOPKINS : The Knight of the Lion. For Intermediate Grades. 

A delightful story which preserves the quaint style of the 
original French. 

LARGE: A Visit to the Farm. For Intermediate Grades. 

The adventures of a city boy who visits his country 
cousin. 

LARGE: Old Stories for Young Readers. For Primary Grades. 

A collection of stories which all children ought to read. 



OSWELL: 

O.SWELL: 

OSWELL: 
REYNOLDS: 

STOCKTON : 

UNDERWOOD: 

WARNER: 

WERTHNER: 

YOUNG: 



Old Time Tales. For Primary Grades. 
Ballads and folktales that children of the Old World 
have heard for hundreds of years. 

A Fairy Book. For Primary Grades. 
A collection of good stories of fairies and other little earth 
people. 

Stories Grandmother Told. For Primary Grades. 
Old fairy stories interestingly told. 

How Man Conquered Nature. For Intermediate Grades. 
Stories that will give vitality to the study of history and 
geography. 

Stories of the Spanish Main. For Grammar Grades. 
A collection of stirring adventures on land and sea, por- 
traying scenes of historical and literary value. 

Heroes of Conquest and Empire. For Intermediate and 

Grammar Grades. 
Old stories of famous conquerors told with freshness and 

vigor. 

Nonsense Dialogues. For Primary Grades. 
Mother Goose in dramatic form. 

How Man Makes Markets. For Grammar Grades. 

The story of commerce. 

When We Were Wee. For Intermediate Grades. 
A vivid picture of child life in war times. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
ATLANTA BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO 



A Child's Book of Holiday Plays 

By FRANCES GILLESPY WICKES 

Cloth l2mo Illustrated 50 cents 



An attractive book of plays for each of the school holi- 
days. The titles of these plays are : 

THE CAPTURED YEAR. A play for New Years. 

THE LIGHT. A patriotic play suitable for Washington's 
or Lincoln's Birthday. . 

ST. VALENTINE'S HOUSE. For St. Valentine's Day. 

THE FIRST MAY BASKETS. A May Day play. 

BAUCIS AND PHILEMON. Suitable for Arbor Day. 

A LITTLE PATRIOT. A play for the Fourth of July. 

THE GOBLIN STONE. A play for Hallowe'en. 

THE THANKFUL HEART. A play for Thanksgiving. 

THE CHRISTMAS JEST. A Christmas play. 

These little plays are intended primarily for classroom 
use as dramatic readings, in all grades of the elementary 
school. They may also be given as school performances 
with simple costumes and scenery. Directions for cos- 
tumes and stage setting given at the back of the book. 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

ATLANTA NEW YORK CHICAGO 

BOSTON SAN FRANCISCO DALLAS 



4f 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





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